Spoofing Firefox 53 (and newer versions) on Windows 2000 and XP

[DrWho3000]

Had a bit of a head scratcher this morning

I copied my prefs.js from one PC to another PC, started FF  couldn't work out why Youtube and Instagram was broken, all the strings were correct,

then realised i needed the other 2 .js files and it worked..................................

This one I don;t understand I have all the files C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM on both PC's

all the folders/files gmp-eme-adobe  gmp-gmpopenh264  gmp-widevinecdm in right places on both PC's

have silverlight installed on both yet Netflix WILL play on one PC but NOT other can;t fathom this out

I Get

Opps something went wrong

Digital Rights Management (DRM) Error

Am I missing something or maybe file                       Both PC's ARE Win XP SP3

I did try a boolean set to true media.windows-media-foundation.enabled nope

 

IF Like  has been mentioned xp doesn;t support DRM, how is one XP PC I have playing Netflix yet the other doesn;t

I Have ALL the correct strings booleans in bot PC;s ALL the right files in right place

there MUST Be something in one not in the other

Silverlight is on both does Netflix fall back to HTML5

 

A SIde Note
I did find this

2019

Firefox will disable the Flash plugin by default. Users will not be prompted to enable Flash, but it will still be possible to activate Flash on certain sites using browser settings.

2020

In early 2020, Flash support will be completely removed from consumer versions of Firefox. The Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) will continue to support for Flash until the end of 2020.

2021

When Ahttps://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/mozilla-to-disable-flash-plugin-by-default-in-firefox-69/dobe stops shipping security updates for Flash at the end of 2020, Firefox will refuse to load the plugin.

 

this here almost almost does it a few seconds then goes to ooop

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/force-1080p-netflix/

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by DrWho3000

[DrWho3000]

anyone have any idea with FF 52.9 what the correct add is to put into the useragent as if I use this

general.useragent.override Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0 i just get a spinnig blue circle

i can't get into it But if I change it to Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0 

it does let me in

[Dave-H]

Try -
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/70.0.3538.102 Safari/537.36
That's my custom user agent string of choice at the moment (which I got from a post on MSFN needless to say!)
Give that a try.

[DrWho3000]

@Dave-H what I should off said  correct addy to use in useragent to get into the Firefox Sync to connect

i did try general.useragent.override.about:preferences#sync Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0 i just get a spinnig blue circle, No go unless i revert to  52

Edited May 14, 2019 by DrWho3000

[Mathwiz]

Firefox sync? Use rv:52.9 and Firefox/52.9. (IOW the true values.) The SSUAO pref name you want is general.useragent.override.accounts.firefox.com. That way you can set the global pref general.useragent.override to a different value.

[Dave-H]

1 hour ago, DrWho3000 said:

@Dave-H what I should off said  correct addy to use in useragent to get into the Firefox Sync to connect

i did try general.useragent.override.about:preferences#sync Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0 i just get a spinnig blue circle, No go unless i revert to  52

I don't see why you have problems with Firefox sync.
Mine works fine with default settings, and always has done.
Is this a downside to setting a global user agent string?
I use an add-on to change the string just on troublesome sites, and have left everything else well alone!

[DrWho3000]

I'm not sure why it refuses to let me connect to sync using 66, but reverting to 52 it does

[Mathwiz]

I'm not sure either, but a reasonable guess would be that if Sync sees FF 66 in the user agent string, it sends code targeted toward FF 66 that FF 52 can't run. It's the same reason Instagram doesn't work if you tell it you're on FF 66 when you're actually on FF 52.

At any rate, it hardly seems worth worrying about. If a FF 52 user agent works, just use it and don't fret about it.

8 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Is this a downside to setting a global user agent string?

The trick to setting a good global user agent is to find one that fixes more sites than it breaks. Basilisk and Pale Moon now use version 60.9 in Firefox compatibility mode. (IIRC FF 60 was the first Quantum version.) That seems to be a good compromise. It's new enough that sites don't issue stupid "update your browser" messages, yet it keeps the SSUAOs required to fix other sites (that break if they see FF 60.9) down to a manageable number.

No doubt this balancing act will become trickier as time goes by. At some point, the number of SSUAOs needed to keep FF 52 viable will become unweildy, and it'll stop working with many sites at all, no matter what user-agent string it sends. Luckily, we haven't reached that point just yet.

[VistaLover]

20 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

IIRC FF 60 was the first Quantum version

The first Firefox Quantum version in the release (stable) channel was v57.0; 60.0esr was the first Quantum version in the ESR branch (update channel); latest ESR build is now 60.6.3esr, to be soon followed by 60.7.0esr (currently in the "candidates" stage) ...

[Mathwiz]

There was some reason the latest FF ESR branch was delayed from 59 to 60. I thought it was for Quantum but apparently it's something else?

[Mathwiz]

Just updated the myuseragents.js on page 8:

For the benefit of our Polish readers, this update adds the user agent @VistaLover discovered for the player.pl site.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Mathwiz

[Mathwiz]

On 3/25/2019 at 8:10 AM, luweitest said:

Yes I confirm spoofing to FF60.9 works for FF52. However this makes no sense, so Github page's javascript must have some bug.

Well, this is bad news: Github no longer works with FF 52, no matter what spoof I try. I even tried IE (no longer supported - says to update to Edge, which is a bit tough if you're on Win 7) and Chrome spoofs. Nothing worked.

BTW, spoofing anything older than FF 60.0 results in the "old version" banner. 60.0 and up don't produce the banner, but no version, old or new, works.

[siria]

Github: Ouf, you scared me there, but just tried and relieved to have still reading access. With any of roytam's builds, tried KG74 and retrozilla/FF2 with faking IE7. Just need to block styles. Of course that's just for reading plain stuff, other actions may be broken.

[VistaLover]

57 minutes ago, Mathwiz said:

Well, this is bad news: Github no longer works with FF 52, no matter what spoof I try.

... What aspects of the GitHub site have now become broken for you?

I had restored the SSUAO feature in FxESR 52.9.1 in the way I posted about previously (manual insertion of two local *.js files in the main app directory), my override pref for github is: 

general.useragent.override.github.com;Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0

and at the time of this post (June 3rd, 2019, ca, 22:50 UTC) I see no obvious breakage in github.com; but it might also be a CDN issue, i.e. the changes may have been first rolled-out in the Americas and have not yet reached the Europe github mirrors... Time will soon tell...

( On a related note, I see no github.com breakage in both UXP forks (NM28, St52) )

Edited June 3, 2019 by VistaLover

[Mathwiz]

Well, I came back to say,I discovered it works fine in St 52 (spoofing FF 60.9 as usual), but not in St 55. St 55 always acts the way FF/St 52 act if you spoof to any other version; e.g., pressing the branch button just shows a thin horizontal line and won't list your branches.

I'm really confused as to why, but anyway, I can use St 52 unless/until I find a workaround for St 55. Sorry to press the panic button prematurely.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Mathwiz