RFC: Can FreeBSD stream Netflix?

From: Rick Macklem <rick.macklem_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2025 23:47:23 UTC
Hi,

When I'm not tinkering with NFS I'm just a dumbass user,
so here's a dumbass user question...

The background (you can just skip to the question at the end
but maybe you'll find this useful.
I have two old Dell laptops (6420s) that I picked up used and
they've done ok, but both now have flakey hdds.

#1 - hdd died completely, so I installed FreeBSD and it went
        pretty smoothly. It runs Xorg, KDE etc and works pretty well.
        But I can't get it to do one all important thing.
        Stream Netflix. (I've tried assorted browsers, but always get
        the "you should upgrade your browser" treatment.)

#2 - Runs Win10 and does stream Netflix, but is throwing lots of
        hdd errors, so it only a matter of time before I'll need to
        replace the hdd. Once I do that, I have three choices:
        a) Install FreeBSD, but only if I can get it to stream Netflix.
        b) Install Linux. (Some posts claim Linux distros with up
            to date browsers can stream Netflix?)
        c) Install Win10 and run FreeBSD in a VM or dual boot it.

        I'd prefer (a), which leads to the all important question...

Is there someone out there that runs FreeBSD on a laptop or
desktop who can stream Netflix?
If you can answer "yes", can you recall how you installed it
to make this work?

Thanks in advance for any answers, rick