How to Watch Netflix With Friends Far Away
Movies and TV shows are way more fun when you watch them together with your friends. And with the ever-growing online streaming services, it’s now possible to share the viewing experience with other people, even if they are on the other side of the world.
In this article, we would see some of the best ways to watch Netflix together with friends and family that are far away.
1. Netflix Party
Netflix Party is a very popular Google Chrome extension that allows you and your friends remotely to watch Netflix together.
The extension merges the playback between everyone that is watching, adds a new chat window, and allows anyone who is watching to pause and play the video. When someone hits the pause button, the playback on everyone’s screen would stop.
Starting a session is very easy. Just start playing a video on Netflix, hit on the pause button, then hit the extension’s browser button that is in the upper-right corner of the window.
There are a number of downsides. Firstly, the chat usernames are not customizable. Secondly, the session will end after the completion of a film or an episode; if you want to watch a second video, you will need to create a new session and re-add everyone to it.
2. Watch2Gether
If you watch a lot of YouTube videos with your friends, you will probably be already familiar with Watch2Gether. The app has its own player that allows you to natively access the content from YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, and even SoundCloud.
Netflix is not compatible with the Watch2Gether media player, but the company has come up with a workaround to it. The beta W2gSync feature allows you to paste a Netflix URL directly into a special window found in your private room. When you start the video, everyone else would be able to see it. However, only the person that created the room and added the URL would be able to control it.
For W2gSync to work on your pc, you will need to download the official Watch2Gether Chrome browser extension and activate it.
3. Kast
Kast is another awesome way to watch videos with your family and friends. It has support for all of the major online streaming services, which includes Netflix. You can use Kast as a desktop application on Windows and macOS, or even through a web browser. There is also a mobile version for mobile devices.
When using the Kast application, one person would be able to control the stream through a proxy on the online portal. Anyone who is in the same room (usually called a “Party”) as the streamer can watch the show. Parties can be made either private or public.
All of the Kast applications are free to download and use. You can also upgrade to a premium version ($4.99/month as at the time of this writing) for a more improved video quality, a much wider selection of reactions and emojis, together with and an ad-free viewing experience.
4. Scener
Scener lets you watch Netflix remotely with your friends (in sync) while simultaneously offering an accompanying chatroom that you can use to talk about the movie in real-time.
But before you can download Scener, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind. Firstly, the application only works with your primary Netflix profile on any given account. If you share your account with someone else, ensure that you select the main profile when setting up a viewing party. Secondly, the max number of people that can watch at the same time in a room is 10. And finally, only the room leader can pause and restart thee video playback. Scener is made available on the Apple App Store, Chrome Web Store, and Roku.
5. Meta stream
Meta stream allows you to watch Netflix with your friends through a web browser. The company has not (as at the time of writing) developed a standalone desktop or mobile application. As well as Netflix, lots of other mainstream video websites are fully supported, and this includes YouTube, Hulu, Crunchyroll, and Twitch.
In addition to other synced Netflix playback, the Meta stream interface gives you a chatbox and video queuing for continuous watching of movies. Inviting friends to join you in your Netflix party is as simple as just sharing a private invite code.
Before you can use Metastream, you will need to download and install its official browser extension. Its extensions are made available on both Firefox and Chrome.
