How to get webex running in your linux mint stock-firefox browser
Webex is a software for video conferencing and training over the Internet. There are applications for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, as well as the possibility to use Webex in certain browsers. Unfortunately there is no Webex for Linux ready for download. But don’t worry: Help is on its way!
Unfortunately, Webex does not have a consistent feature set and unfortunately some features are not stable – such as the display of an alternative background. There are also occasional problems with the apps in particular when establishing an audio or video connection.
In my experience, the use via the browser is the most uncomplicated and comparable option across all platforms and last but not least that’s why I use it.
Since I have been working mainly with Linux for quite some time now and there is no native app for Linux, in this case only the browser remains anyway. I mainly use Linux Mint and the Firefox that comes with it by default.
Unfortunately the standard Firefox of Linux Mint refuses to work at first. Here you really have to wonder about the developers, because it exists no technical reason. The website points to missing compatibility and gives no further hints. Disappointing – but no reason to worry! I’ll show you how to get it to work…
What you need is Linux Mint (in my case still Linux Mint 19), the standard installed Firefox and about 5 minutes time. After that it will work.
Instructions
Step 1: Ensure that the settings for camera and microphone access have been set to default. This is mandatory, if you want to communicate via Audio and Video through your browser. You can check this by going to the settings, clicking on Camera and Microphone under Privacy and make sure that the checkboxes for general prohibition are not checked. If they are set: Remove the check mark. Be not scared: Firefox will ask you before access to camera and microphone will be allowed.
Step 2: Configure your browser so that it pretends to be Windows-Firefox. Just open a new tab and type “about:config” and accept the risks. Our change will have minimal risk – if you do not feel comfortable, you can always undo the steps we’ll do now.
Now you have to type (please be exact!) the following (without the quotation marks): “general.useragent.override”. It is possible that this entry does not exist yet. If this is the case, you can just create this entry right now by yourself. This step is almost self-explanatory – but please make sure that you create it as a “string”. Please copy the following (also without quotation marks): “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:79.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/79.0” into the input field and save.
Step 3: Connect your webcam, if your computer does not have a built-in camera (I use a Microsoft LifeCam and surprisingly it works out of the box with Webex via Linux-Browser) and go to the test page of Webex in an incognito tab of Firefox: https://www.webex.com/test-meeting.html . The inkognito tab is important, because the website uses some evil tracking features which should not affect your normal browsing activities. Enter a username and an email address and start the test meeting.
If everything was done correctly, you should receive a permission request for your camera and microphone and the test meeting should start. It might be possible that Firefox asks you twice for access permission – this is normal and you can allow the access also the second time.
Thank you very much! This was very helpful and now it works great!! Greetings from Germany!