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I want to use TurboTax online to do my Income Tax but apparently Ubuntu (or any other flavor of Linux) is not supported. Is there any way around this? I have Chrome and Firefox but both get the "Not Supported" page at TurboTax website.

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  • I've read people saying they can use it after they click through the warning messages, is that working for you?
    – Stefano Palazzo
    Jan 25, 2011 at 1:41
  • No, a page comes up with a list of supported operating systems/browsers. Only Windows and Mac are listed with the most popular web browsers.
    – deleted
    Jan 25, 2011 at 1:46

10 Answers 10

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One of the people from TurboTax said in response to a Linux user:

[...]you can try the link below to bypass TurboTax's system requirement checks. We can't make any guarantees that you won't run into problems though.

https://turbotax.intuit.com/login/start.jsp

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  • This doesn't seem to work for me anymore.
    – isaaclw
    Mar 5, 2013 at 0:57
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    @isaaclw As of 2013 they seemed to have got more obnoxious about it. See user130547's answer below.
    – Kazark
    Mar 16, 2013 at 22:50
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Trick turbo tax into thinking you're on Windows 7 64 bit with IE9:

http://www.howtogeek.com/113439/how-to-change-your-browsers-user-agent-without-installing-any-extensions/

Check out the last section called "Mozilla Firefox"

  1. Navigate to about:config

  2. Accept the warning

  3. Create a new string called general.useragent.override

  4. Set the value to Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; Trident/5.0)

  5. Close out of firefox and revisit turbotax

  6. Log in and finish taxes

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  • I've had to do similar with other websites.
    – Argusvision
    Feb 12, 2013 at 19:14
  • Restarting firefox is actually required (even though it seemed like I shouldn't have to).
    – isaaclw
    Mar 18, 2013 at 15:11
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If that doesn't work out for you TaxAct.com does work with Linux and has comparable features to TurboTax.

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  • I use Linux and file my taxes on line using Firefox and the www.taxact.com software. Have been filing for years and never gotten any Linux refusal. I can complete and start and stop it at will, and come back later, and when finished file electronically. They have been charging me 13.99 for many years to file the Federal Taxes and the state taxes. Never had an issue. If Turbo refuses with Linux, why bother with them? Have not bought a piece of software either, since it is browser based program. You can also access them through IRS.gov web site, and file for free on the Fed, but then have to pay
    – user379133
    Feb 15, 2015 at 20:48
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Why would a Web-Application not support an Operating System? AFAIK, if something is not supported, then it is the browser (and generally, only one Browser is mentioned in that context). What I could think of is:

  1. Those people are simply biased towards Linux and block any access from it.
  2. They are using a plugin or special software that is only supported by Windows or Mac and therefor block access from Linux (I doubt it)

In any case, you should get a User-Agent-Switcher. With that little plugin, you can fake your Browser and/or Operating System so that the website does not know that you are running Linux. It is kind of sad that people have to resort to those methods.

A firefox agent switcher can be obtained here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/developers

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I installed Wine in Ubuntu:

sudo aptitude install wine

Then download firefox for windows and install under wine.

Next download and install flash 9 or 10 for windows under wine.

Now open the wine version of firefox and turbo tax online will think you are using windows - works every time.

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If it really isn't platform specific (doesn't use IE specific Javascript or Active X), you can install the User Agent Switcher addon in Firefox and fool the website into thinking you are on another platform.

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  1. Get Chrome (I'm running Chromium 9.0.597.107 (75357) Ubuntu 10.10).
  2. Download the User Agent Switcher Extension and install it.
  3. A new button appears on the top right. Click it and select Internet Explorer 8.
  4. Go to TurboTax and sign in. Everything works for me.
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For Firefox I found the following:

  1. Go to about:config and search for useragent.
  2. Verify that you don't already have a general.useragent.override key.

  3. Create one as a string. Put the following in:

    Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; Win64; x64; rv:16.0.1) Gecko/20121011 Firefox/16.0.1

    In place of Firefox/16.0.1 put your firefox version in (in case it 19.0.2)

  4. Restart Firefox.

That'll at least let you log in to the site. It worked great.

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I used TurboTax via Chromium on Ubuntu 12.04 this year for the first time and I did not experience any issues. The Department of the Treasury saw fit to pocket my refund this year, but I'm fairly certain that had nothing to do with my OS or choice of browser and more to do with falling behind on old student loans.

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As of today, 12 December 2018, Firefox 62.0.3 works. You have to ignore the warning, but all functionality for TurboTax for 2018 is there.

I am a TurboTax Product Support agent, so I tested this to help potential customers :)

Running Ubuntu 18.04.1LTS on AMD A8,6GB,250GB Matt Needles

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