Netflix + Safari 5 = No Joy. But, there is a solution!

Okay, so those of you who updated your browser to Safari 5, you may have noticed a problem watching your Netflix videos. Apparently it's more of a browser inventory issue on the part of Netflix and not a technical problem with Safari 5.

User Agent


Browsers have what is called a 'user agent.' The user agent is nothing more than the browsers identifying information - it tells the website what browser you are using and on what platform. So, if you're using Safari 5 on Mac the user agent will tell that to the web site you visit. This allows web site administrators to see what browsers users are using when visiting their sites so that the web site developers can program the site to work accordingly. This is becoming more and more of a statistic as more and more web site developers adopt web standards that work in all standards-based browsers. In the case of Netflix it appears they have not updated their web site to recognize Safari 5 as a supported browser. So, switching your browser to identify itself as Safari 4 is easy.

How To Fix


For now, you can set your browser to identify itself as Safari 4. First, go to Safari 5's preferences. Click on the Advanced icon and check the box that Show Develop menu in menu bar is checked.

Next, just select Develop on the top menu and choose User Agent, then Safari 4.1 - Mac.

That should allow you to access Netflix again!