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My browser (Brave) asked me about this today. I haven't seen any message like it before on this site or any other. It only appeared on one of several threads I clicked on.
It seems like it's a way of playing DRM-protected video content. I presume this was ad-related content. I blocked it.
But why on earth would a site need to install extra software in order to feed me DRM-protected ads?
Think it's used by Amazon Prime and other streaming services.
Not sure why STW would want to install it, unless there's some embedded Netflix or Spotify or something somewhere in the page.
Not seen it myself in Brave (yet).
It’s likely included with the install in Chrome and Firefox so they don’t even ask. Not sure what stw would be using it for though.
To the best of my knowledge,
The Widevine client is included by default in pretty much all browsers, and is used by many premium content providers. It's required if as Andy says you want to watch Netflix, Prime etc in your browser. It is basically ubiquitous.
You're getting an alert in Brave because Brave's USP is to allow you to use Chrome's rendering engine (Blink, which is also near-ubiquitous outside of fruity devices and Firefox) but keep Google's beak out of everything else you're doing. It's flagging up Widevine as a Google product because that's exactly what Brave is for.
As for why STW might need it, I can only speculate. DRM-protected adverts would be a bit weird, I suppose it's possible but why would an advertiser want to restrict viewers from seeing their promotional content? Protecting subscriber-exclusive content would make sense, but then, why would that be popping up for a Free Member? Unless it's just part of the site markup generally and doesn't check user status I suppose. Or maybe it's part of some licensing agreement between STW and a third-party, like they've got an exclusive first-look at something on the proviso that it can't be rehosted.
But most likely to my mind, maybe they're just protecting their own content. Otherwise what's to stop anyone from creating a "STW Videos" channel on YouTube, scraping this site for content and republishing it.
Now there's an idea...
Behave your bad self.
Unless it’s just part of the site markup generally and doesn’t check user status I suppose.
I don't know much about Widevine, presumably it doesn't have to be DRM'd content to require a script that's almost ubiquitous.
I've only seen the message once, and I didn't tick the box because I was curious if it would reappear. So my guess is that it's a random advert that I was served. The wording from Brave makes it sound quite malicious, though.