How To: Watch Netflix in Sync with Friends Remotely

If you want to watch a movie on Netflix with a friend, family member, or significant other, but can't meet up in the same living room, the next best thing is doing it remotely from the comfort of your own homes.

Xbox LIVE used to have a feature called Party mode that made it easy to sync Netflix accounts for just this purpose, but they removed it a couple years ago, much to everyone's disdain.

Sure, you could coordinate when to start and pause the movie, but it's not as easy as letting a piece of software do it for you. You want to talk about the movie when it's playing, not how to watch the movie.

Thankfully, there's Showgoers now, an extension for the Google Chrome browser that let's you create a shareable link to a Netflix stream to help all viewers stay in sync throughout the entire flick. Once the other party has logged into their Netflix account and clicked on the link, they will automatically pick up right where your stream is at.

The best thing about this is that anyone with a Netflix account can enjoy this, unlike the discontinued Xbox feature which was only available to paying Xbox LIVE members.

To grab your copy of Showgoers, head over to their Chrome Web Store page and click the Add to Chrome button.

To create a link, log in to your Netflix account, start a stream, then click on Start a Sync Session under the Showgoers glasses icon. You will then be presented with a link that can be sent to as many people as you want.

It should go without saying, but everyone you share the link with must also be using Chrome and have the Showgoers extension installed. They will also need to be signed into their own Netflix account since they are still using it to play the stream.

Now whenever you play, pause, rewind, or skip ahead, all of the connected players will do the same. And to make this even better, cast the Netflix tab over to your TV with a Chromecast for a more immersive experience—so that you can concentrate on talking or chatting with the other viewers without having to shrink the size of the Netflix window on your computer screen.

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