Netflix had some 75 million paying subscribers around the world—but how many of those people are getting the most out of their subscription? You can supercharge your viewing experience with these browser extensions and online apps that will take your Netflix game to a whole new level.




Extensions

Flix Plus by Lifehacker: a Chrome extension packed with tweaks from our good friends at Lifehacker, offering random episodes, customized lists, blocks for potential episode spoilers, fades for titles you’ve already seen, extended search and lots of other cool stuff.




Netflix Party: This Chrome extension enables you to watch Netflix remotely with friends. It introduces a group chat window down the right of the interface and keeps playback in sync between machines so you’re all watching the same scenes together.

NEnhancer: This Chrome extension adds a few bells and whistles on top of the core Netflix experience, including pop-up ratings, links to trailers, the option to show or hide categories on the front screen, and a random episode button (previously on Field Guide).


OttoPlay: A very handy (and free) Chrome extension that lets you watch Netflix like it’s running on an old-school cable (essentially adding the illusion of channel-surfing capabilities on top of the platform). It’s one of our favorite plug-ins for Netflix.

Super Browse: Did you hear Netflix has a ton of hidden category codes? Super Browse is a simple browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that unhides them and saves you having to guess the numerical code for each subcategory that you’re interested in exploring.


Super Netflix: Extra tools during playback are focus of this Chrome extension. It lets you adjust video quality on the fly, introduce custom subtitles, and get on-screen diagnostics with a click. It’s smooth and simple and feels very much like a native set of features.


Websites and online apps

FlickSurfer: if you’re stuck for something to watch, and you’re getting no joy out of Netflix’s recommendation algorithms, try FlickSurfer (a site we’ve covered in the past). Movies and shows can be filtered by actor, genre, rating, awards and more besides.


Flixed: As you’re probably aware, Netflix content differs wildly from country to country. Flixed lets you search by region with one click of the mouse, so you can check up on what you’re missing out on—or see the shows and movies you can watch on your next holiday.


JustWatch: This site and app covers pretty much every video-on-demand service currently out there—Not just Netflix. It’s a helpful tool for seeing exactly what’s available (use the ratings slider to make sure you’re just seeing the good stuff). This is another one of our favorites.


Leanflix: Leanflix isn’t a tool built exclusively for Netflix, but it can help you narrow down your streaming viewing choices based on critic scores, IMDB ratings, year of release, genre, MPAA rating and more besides.

Netflix Roulette: As you might expect, Netflix Roulette chooses something random for you to watch on the streaming service. You can filter by rating, director, actor, keyword, and type of content (movie or show) if you don’t want something completely random.


New On Netflix: This is another listings site, but one that’s more comprehensive than the others. The real strength of New On Netflix is its catalog of what’s old on Netflix—it has an up-to-date list of everything that’s leaving the platform in the coming days so you can watch it before it’s gone.


What Is My Movie?: The experimental What Is My Movie? isn’t specifically tailored for Netflix, but it can work out what film you’re talking about based on a natural language description (like “Tom Hanks is young”). Give it a try and be hugely impressed by its accuracy.


What Is On Netflix?: The What Is On Netflix? site looks similar to a lot of other streaming directories, but it has two important features in its favor—it lets you see all the new stuff with a couple of clicks and comes with apps for Android and iOS you can use on your mobile devices.

[Header image: Gil C/Shutterstock.com]