Can you watch Disney+ on Chromebook?
Best answer: Theoretically, there are two ways to watch Disney+ on a Chromebook: watching via a web player in the browser and via the Android app. At the moment, playback through the Disney+ web player isn’t working on Chromebooks, but playback works via the Android app.
Limited playback: Disney+ ($70/yr at Disney)
The Netherlands preview is giving us a look at where platform support for Disney+ will be beyond the list Disney shared at the D23 Expo — a list that didn’t mention any desktop OS and or Chromebooks, even though the platform support graphic during Investor Day included laptops on it. We know that Disney+ does have a web player, and that on PC and Mac, the Chrome Browser plays fine with it.
Unfortunately, the web player doesn’t seem to be working on Chromebooks (or any Linux system) right now, according to a number of user reviews left on the Disney+ Android app. However, a silver lining can also be found in the same user reviews:
While reviews from September mentioned Chromebooks not being able to play Disney+ at all, reviews from October do say that playback via the Android app is at least working. If playback only works one way or the other, the app is the preferable one since you’ll be able to download videos for offline playback through it.
Where it should be on Disney+
In a perfect world, Disney+ would function on a Chromebook the same way Netflix and Google Play Movies do: you can stream without an app via the Chrome browser or you can install the Android app and download videos to watch offline. After all, Chromebooks are the primary computers for millions of kids — whether they’re school-issued or bought by parents that needed a laptop their kid wouldn’t break once a month — and not supporting Disney+ on it seems like a pretty big oversight.
Hopefully the DRM check on Chromebooks and Linux will be fixed before the main rollout in November, but until then, at least you can play Disney+ in some capacity on a Chromebook.
Not quite ready
Disney+
Disney+ is almost here, but there are still bugs to work out.
Disney’s streaming service may have been years in the making, but it’s not ready for millions of users on dozens of platforms quite yet. Chromebooks have two methods for using Disney+, but only one works at the moment.
