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Faustina Bartsch
Netflix Party may have impressed the stream-and-binge crowd when it first launched, but thanks to a huge demand for group viewing, watch parties are now ubiquitous. Netflix Party upgraded to Teleparty, servicing many streamers apart from Netflix. Other apps have also appeared to fill in the gaps Teleparty left in its wake, like Scener, which covers all of Teleparty's services plus Shudder, Showtime, and Vimeo, and Kast, which supports Tubi.
Some streaming services have also taken it upon themselves to let subscribers share screens directly on their platforms. In particular, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, AppleTV+, and Plex have their own built-in group watch feature. They only differ in the number of allowed participants (Hulu allows a max of seven, for instance, while Amazon Prime incredibly allows a max of 100), but for the most part, they function similarly: just press the group watch button and you're good to go. Sling also famously used to be the only live TV service to offer the same feature, but as of January 2024, the provider officially closed it.
Disney Plus can be accessed via a full range of services including Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Fire TV, Roku, Xbox One and is compatible across Apple and PC computers, and Android and Apple phones and tablets.
Apple TV+ is an ad-free on-demand stream from Apple that costs $9.99 per month and is accessible in about 150 countries. The Apple TV+ app is accessible via Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac) and Apple TV. While Android phones and tablets are not supported, you can access Apple TV+ via Android-powered TV devices like Chromecast. It can be accessed via web browser and supported by PC, as well as Roku devices, Amazon Fire TV devices, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Depending on where you live, access to Amazon Prime might differ. If you live in the US, UK, or Germany, you have the option of paying a yearly or monthly subscription fee for an Amazon Prime account. Users from the US, UK, France, and Brazil likewise have access to Amazon Prime's sports content which, depending on the season, may include live and on-demand coverage of basketball, football, and baseball events. Meanwhile, people in countries where Amazon is not operating may only be able to access it from a browser.
In addition to on-demand streaming, you can rent or buy titles that are not on the service or purchase add-on channels like HBO, Starz, and MLB.TV to watch on the Amazon Prime platform. And apart from Amazon devices, the app is available on any mobile device, including iOS, Android, or Windows. The app also works on Apple and Windows computers, a wide range of TVs, mobile devices, and gaming consoles.
Dubbed "The Free Netflix," Tubi is one of the best options for streaming quality movies and TV shows online. The completely free, ad-supported service has one of the most extensive title lineups, plus it's compatible with most devices, making it an extremely popular option for cord-cutters. Though it has been noted to have a less than stellar resolution, most viewers don't mind due to its easy interface, constantly updated library, and of course free titles. Parents will also be glad to know that the service has parental control features.
Peacock is a streaming service owned by NBC, with options for paid subscriptions as well as a free plan. The free plan offers about 13,000 hours of ad-supported content, with the option to upgrade to premium for more access to content. The premium options include two plans: $7.99 a month or $80 a year for ad-supported; $13.99 a month or $140 a year for ad-free. With both premium plans, you'll get access to the full catalog of 2,000 movies and shows, including every episode of the original NBC series. You'll also get next-day access to all the new episodes of ongoing NBC shows, and early access to talk shows such as Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on the air night. You can stream Peacock on Apple devices like the iPhone and Apple TV, Google devices like Android phones and Chromecast, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. But there is still no app available for Roku or Amazon platforms.
In the US, a monthly subscription currently runs at $5.99 per month, or $56.99 per year. In 2020, Shudder extended its operations to Australia and New Zealand, where pricing differs. You can also sign up to Shudder via your Amazon Prime account.
Shudder can be accessed via a full range of services including Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Fire TV, Roku, Xbox One and is compatible across Apple and PC computers, and Android and iOS phones and tablets.
Crunchyroll is a video-on-demand streaming website that specializes in anime and is available in 170 countries. It has also recently absorbed a competitor, FUNIMATION, offering an even bigger catalog.You can opt for either a free ad-supported plan or subscribe to the paid tier. The free version doesn't include simulcasts or access to all of Crunchyroll's content, but for $7.99 per month the premium tier removes those limitations.You can access Crunchyroll via web browser (www.crunchyroll.com), while the Crunchyroll app is also available on all major platforms, mobile devices including Android and iOS, and media streaming devices including Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV Chromecast, and Android TV, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
The streaming services on this page were chosen by our editors. If you choose to subscribe to a streaming service we recommend as a result of our research, analysis, and curation, our work is sometimes (but not always) supported by an affiliate commission from the streaming service when you make a purchase.
These days, we've all got to practice social distancing in response to COVID-19, or the coronavirus. But we all want to hang out with our friends. We can do things like use Animal Crossing to connect to each other. We may want to watch a movie or two with friends, but the legality of streaming movies via Discord and Zoom is iffy. Luckily, with the new Chrome extension Netflix Party, you can watch Netflix movies with your buds from the safety of your own home, which is exactly what you need right now.
Netflix Party is a simple-to-use extension, not affiliated with Netflix, that lets you watch TV and movies from Netflix with your friends, at the same time. You can catch up on what's happening in your lives in the handy chatroom that it adds in the sidebar or riff on a movie together la Mystery Science Theater 3000. Even if you don't use the text chat and opt for a video or voice call using an app of your choosing, what makes Netflix Party particularly useful is the way it syncs up what you're watching for everyone with a link. If you've ever tried to coordinate a virtual watch party, sometimes counting down and pressing play at the same time just doesn't cut it.
In this guide, we'll walk you through exactly how to setup Netflix Party so you can start watching stuff with friends. In order to test out it out ourselves, we needed to pick out a movie to watch, and what better movie than Horse Girl, which has a very bizarre trailer. Considering "horsie movies" is already a weird inside joke with the entertainment team, why not watch this movie together? If you want something better to try it out with, check out our list of what's new to Netflix in April.
Head to the official Netflix Party website to find a link to the Chrome extension. Yes, you'll need to be using Google Chrome to access this extension. Install it by hitting "Add to Chrome" in the Chrome Web Store.
After Netflix Party is installed, head to Netflix and select the movie or TV show you want to play, then click the "NP" button in your browser, to the right of the address bar. From there, you can start the party and generate a specific Netflix Party URL to copy and paste to friends. You can also select whether you have exclusive access to playing, pausing, and tweaking options in the movie, or if other viewers can too. Remember, Netflix Party syncs up the movie for everyone, so if you pause the movie and you're hosting the party, it will pause for all your friends too.
As you can see, a chat box pops up on the right side. You can customize your chatroom name and pick from a few avatars. It is very basic, but it brings back the very nostalgic feeling of hanging out in an AOL chatroom--why didn't any of us write "A/S/L?"
A few things to note: the person controlling the party is streaming their Netflix account to the others in the group, so there is a tiny bit of a delay, but that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things since it's a chatroom. The only other issue with Netflix Party was finding out how to exit. There's no button in the chat section to do this. Very quickly, we learned you just exit the movie, and that's all you need to do. The most obvious answer is the correct one.
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