1317371 - Netflix isn't working on Firefox for Linux, due to User Agent sniffing

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1181884

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect)

Description

[Dan D (volunteer tester from the community)]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:49.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/49.0
Build ID: 20161028133011

Steps to reproduce:

Part A:

1) Go to Netflix.com and sign in

2) Click any video's play button to start watching the video. 

(Video will fail to play)

Part B:

3) Get User Agent Switcher addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/ 

4) Set User Agent Switcher add-on to claim to be Windows 7. Use this UA string: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:49.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/49.0

5) Click play on any Netflix video

(Video should play now)


Actual results:

Part A (default behavior):

Videos won't play. User is sent to the "your browser is not supported" page: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 

---

Part B (having spoofed the UA string of a supported browser): 

Video plays. Works perfectly/no issues.


Expected results:

Videos should just play (without UA spoofing).

Comment 1

[Adam Williams]

I can also confirm this and have been encouraged to raise this with Netflix by others on IRC, since this is clearly an issue on their end.

To date, I have tried the live chat (useless, rep didn't understand what Linux was and wouldn't escalate), emailing [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail] (no responses from any yet) and contacting Netflix's help twitter account (no response).

The last I heard regarding this was that "Netflix are apparently going to be getting around to Widevine in Firefox on Linux after thanksgiving".

Comment 2

[Adam Williams]

Got a response back from Netflix:

> Your email regarding Netflix playback support in Firefox for Linux was forwarded to me. 

> As you've noticed, we don't currently support playback in Firefox for Linux. That said, the inclusion of Widevine makes support much more feasible. We're looking into it actively, though I don't have a specific timeline to share just yet - though the player may function, we want to ensure error rates and other elements of the user experience are solid before moving forward. 

> I appreciate your feedback regarding both support and your customer service experience, and I'm happy to follow up with you when the situation changes.

Comment 3

[Anthony Jones (:ajones, :kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e)]

Firefox on Linux is not supported by Netflix at this point in time.