It’s time to move over regular cable TV and hop onto the digital world of on-demand streaming services. Netflix, the most prominent player in the industry, has a wide array of the world’s most popular TV shows and movies along with some great exclusive titles. If you have a Netflix account, you’re probably already enjoying the benefits of streaming videos whenever you want. But if you want to avoid irregular buffering or watching on low-quality streams, here are 10 tips and tricks to help you ‘Netflix and Chill’ better.
Netflix tips, tricks, hacks
1. Skip all the spoilers
If you are a true movie or TV show buff, you would know the pain of spoilers that end up ruining the entire watching experience. Thankfully, this new app called FlixPlus is a nifty Chrome plugin that helps you filter out all the spoilers – in the form of movie trailers, reviews, or previews. It offers you with a distortion-free experience while you binge-watch shows on Netflix.
2. Surprise yourself with random streams
Netflix has a plethora of various kinds of movies and shows in all major languages across the world. If you are tired of rewatching the same genre or the same kind of shows, you can try out the Randon button extension. It picks out a random TV show/movie that you might want to explore if you are feeling to experiment with Netflix. It’s risky but you never know you might find something really gold and recommendable to your friends.
3. Dig deep into the genres
Sometimes, you want to watch a comedy movie, or an action film, or something really specific. Don’t worry. Netflix has you covered. Netflix’s genre breakdown page helps you go really deep into the specific genre you want. For instance, you can instantly choose between Goofy Crime Comedies, Action Adventure Thrillers, and so on. Now, Netflix lets you give your mind the perfect match.
4. Save data by reducing stream quality
Streaming videos on the Internet is a costly affair when it comes to the amount of 4G data spent on it. If you are on a limited plan, you would prefer to reduce the amount of data your Netflix stream eats up. Just log into your Netflix account and then go to Account > Playback Settings, where you can choose between the levels of streaming quality that also determines the amount of Internet used per hour. It is not recommended to go below ‘Medium’ for optimal viewing experience.
5. Get your friends together to binge-watch
Binge-watching a show on Netflix is a fun experience. You don’t need to wait for weeks to get new episodes, and you can easily get done with a season in a couple of days. But how fun is it when you share your viewing experience? This new chat service at rabb.ite called Rabbit lets you get friends on board and collectively watch the same shows at the exact same time! Now, you can discuss the show’s story, episode by episode, and share the fun. Use the Netflix Party Chrome extension to Netflix together.
6. Enjoy faster speeds at odd hours
When your entire neighborhood is hooked onto that sweet Narcos action or Frank Underwood’s mystery moves, it could cause a problem in the data speeds if you all have subscribed to the same cable broadband. A simple solution to this is watching your favorite shows or movies at night, during odd hours. So, a 2 AM binge-watch session not only ensures that you will get super-fast streaming speeds, but it also gives you some alone time to get deep into the stories without any disturbance.
TIP: Here’s how you can stop the Netflix app from auto-playing Trailers & Previews.
7. Keyboard shortcuts for the Netflix Master
If you want to customize your experience without having to use the mouse to click on the screen, you should memorize all the crucial keyboard shortcuts on Netflix. Most of them aren’t really custom and apply to most of the other video players on your computer. Clicking ‘F‘ will blow up the screen to the maximum size. Clicking ‘Esc‘ will bring it back to minimized mode. The Spacebar can be used to play or pause the video, and Shift+Right Arrow will fast forward the stream while Shift+Left Arrow will bring it back a little. See the full list here.
8. Clear your viewing history
We aren’t judging you. Sometimes, everyone has had the need to delete their history, whether be it some embarrassing titles or something you don’t want your kid to accidentally click on. Netflix has a cure for that; the service allows the user to selectively delete their history from all logged in places. Go to this netflix.com link and you can see the list of shows and movies, in entirety, that you have viewed on Netflix.
9. Auto-pause Netflix when you fall asleep
These brilliant ‘Netflix socks‘ are a great wearable if you are a fan of watching your Netflix cozied up in bed at night. They wirelessly link to your Netflix and pauses your TV show or movie when they don’t detect movement for a long duration. With an integrated accelerometer, the socks can signal a warning to Netflix and can even pause the video to avoid any unwanted inconvenience later.
10. When in doubt, opt for Reddit
Reddit is the place on the Internet where you can find tricks, solutions, and discussions to just about anything. So, when you are doubtful about what movie or TV show to start with on Netflix, Reddit probably is the place to be. There is a dedicated subreddit ‘r/NetflixBestOf‘ that entails most of the great content that has been uploaded regularly. There is a huge number of huge movies and TV show buffs all posting their own views about different stuff. Just get onto the bandwagon and watch whatever the consensus is on.
Bonus Tips:
These Netflix Chrome extensions are sure to help you get more out of this service.
