Netflix Should Now Play Nicely On Fedora, Other Linux Distributions

Written by Michael Larabel in Desktop on 21 April 2017 at 07:12 AM EDT. 44 Comments
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Those trying to run Netflix from Chrome/Firefox on different Linux distributions should now see broader compatibility for this popular streaming service without having to alter your HTTP user-agent strings.

Netflix has been working out fine on Ubuntu with modern Chrome/Firefox web-browsers, but up until recently, those using other distributions like Fedora were having less luck as Netflix's HTML5 web player was using some HTTP user-agent string checking that ended up blocking access. But if using user-agent strings that matched Ubuntu (or dropped references to these "unsupported" distributions), everything would work fine on these other Linux spins.

Fedora, openSUSE, Debian, and CentOS has been among the distributions blocked if their names appear in the HTTP user-agent string, but fortunately this bogus/outdated check has been eliminated. GNOME developer Jiri Eischmann has pointed out that those with up-to-date versions of Chrome or Firefox on other non-Ubuntu Linux distributions should now have fine out-of-the-box access to Netflix via its HTML5 video player.
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Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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