Installing Chromium browser from Flatpak with Cisco Openh264 codec: resolving the "Server returned status 403" error

June

2026

Installing Chromium browser from Flatpak with Cisco Openh264 codec: resolving the "Server returned status 403" error

16 June 2026 15:50

Installing Chromium with the Openh264 codec, bypassing blocking due to sanctions against Russia.

Introduction

Previously, installing Chromium from Flatpak did not cause problems, as described in article). But due to sanctions against Russia, the Openh264 codec stopped loading from the website ciscobinary.openh264.org.

See picture:
.

Error:Server returned status 403

The code “403” means “Forbidden” i.e. "forbidden".

The article provides a simple solution to the problem using conventional means, without using a VPN.

Instructions for installing Chromium with Openh264 codec

1) Download the Openh264 codec file from the Wayback Machine website

https://web.archive.org/web/20251005202247/http://ciscobinary.openh264.org/libopenh264-2.5.1-linux64.7.so.bz2

2) Edit the /etc/hosts file - add the line to it

127.0.0.1 ciscobinary.openh264.org

3) Launch a local web server:

cd Загрузки
sudo python3 -m http.server 80

4) Launch the web browser and check by entering the address in the address bar http://ciscobinary.openh264.org/- the file should be visible among others "libopenh264-2.5.1-linux64.7.so.bz2".

5) Install or update Chromium from Flatpak

sudo flatpak install flathub org.chromium.Chromium

If the installation was done previously, you need to update Flatpak and install the Openh264 codec virtually from the local computer:

sudo flatpak update

Now the installation of the Openh264 codec is completed successfully:

Source:https://github.com/cisco/openh264/issues/3886

Blog about Radio and Linux