Netflix Party allows you to synchronize the playback with your friends, but only in Google Chrome

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• Netflix Party allows you to synchronize the playback with your friends, but only in Google Chrome

Netflix Party is here, and the new unofficial social feature from the world's biggest TV streaming service should make watching your favorite shows on the couch a little less lonely. It allows you to sync the playback of movies and TV episodes with your friends, wherever they are. What is Netflix Party? The features website calls it "a new way to watch Netflix with your friends online. Netflix Party syncs video playback and adds group chat to your favorite Netflix shows." Playback synchronization means you'll start and end a movie at exactly the same time as your friends, with a sidebar to chat in real time about everything you watch. Do you want to scream in all caps as Barb is dragged in The Upside Down in Stranger Things, or cry over the poignant scenes of self-actualization in Queer Eye? You can do this without taking your eyes off the screen. It's not an official Netflix feature, and it's supported by a Patreon, but it's simple enough to add to your browser. However, there is a catch: it is only available in Google Chrome. So if you're a hardcore user of Safari, Firefox, or - shudder - Microsoft Edge, you're currently out of options.

Rave the roof

It is not the first time we have seen something like this, even for Netflix. We previously reported on the social streaming app Rave, which allows users to sync Netflix or YouTube videos on mobile devices (or certain VR headsets) with other users of the app. But Netflix Party seems to have a much larger user base because it's a browser add-on, rather than limited to smartphones and tablets. In this isolated society, having more social features in our content services is a great thing. After testing Netflix Party ourselves, it's non-intrusive and easy to use, with a neat sidebar stuck to the right side of the screen, and options to set an icon and nickname for each person joining the synced stream. All you have to do is download the extension to your Chrome browser and then tap the Netflix Party icon in the bookmarks bar while watching a movie or TV episode. The chat will also continue for several consecutive episodes, which means you can spend a whole season of fun with your loved ones.