10 ways to enhance your Netflix experience
Tricks to help you view the service in a new way
The end of the year is the time when we count our blessings: family, friends, and nearly unlimited movies and television for $10.99 per month.
Netflix is a powerful tool for surviving the chaos of December. You can watch movies while traveling. You can set up Christmas specials for the kiddies. You can tame bickering relatives with a favorite family flick.
With a little tinkering, you can make your Netflix experience even better. First, make sure your connection speed is up to par.
Here are some clever tricks for getting the most out of your Netflix experience. Many users are surprised how pliable the platform is, once they learn a few tricks. If you haven’t fiddled much with your Netflix options, get ready to view the service in a whole new way.
Download movies and shows
This move might be the greatest decision Netflix has made since it started the streaming revolution. Now you can download certain films and shows from its library and store them on your laptop, tablet or phone. The Netflix app makes this easy: Just hit “Download,” and your device will store the film for later viewing.
Set up multiple profiles
If you have kids, you may already have two profiles: one for adults, and another that’s family-friendly. But you can add other profiles as well, so your preferences and search history remain unique to your tastes. Just hit Switch Accounts and you’ll see the option Add Profile.
This is especially handy when multiple family members want to use the same account on different devices.
Sift through Netflix’s weird subcategories
Several movie buffs have decoded the Netflix system, but one easy one is Secret Codes Search.
Pick a movie at random through Netflix roulette
Some people can spend an hour sifting through the endless Netflix options and still come up with nothing. (Author Douglas Coupland called this “option paralysis.”) Wouldn’t it be better to just leave your decision up to fate?
That’s why the Internet loves Netflix Roulette, a site that takes your favorite genres, actors and directors and assigns you a film at random. Satisfy any mood without giving it a second thought.
Delete your browsing history
Some movies we like to see in groups. Others we like to see alone. Whether your guilty pleasure is Gigli or Last Tan
go in Paris, you may not want everyone to know your private cinematic tastes. That’s why Netflix makes it easy to hide certain selections from your profile so that nobody else can see what you’ve watched. You’ll find this option under Your Account.
Improve your ratings
Did you also know Netflix takes every rating you give a movie into account when it estimates the star rating you’ll give a new movie? Netflix compares your taste to similar users who watched a movie and uses the information to estimate whether or not you’ll like a film.
Of course, it isn’t always what you’d hope. Maybe you, or someone using your account, decided to check out a movie in a genre you really don’t care for. Suddenly, you’re seeing more movies like it that you don’t want.
The way to change your recommendations is by rating what you watch. When you’re first starting Netflix, you’ll see a lot of surveys asking you to rate movies, shows and genres you’ve watched recently.
Taste preferences are important to fill out so Netflix can build your profile. If you want to revisit your preferences, go to the Netflix site and under Your Account load the Taste Preferences survey.
Netflix enhancer
This nifty add-on only works on Google Chrome, but it definitely earns its title: Enhancer allows you to hover over a film with your mouse and immediately watch trailers and read reviews. The im- mediacy of Enhancer saves you the extra effort of looking up background information on YouTube and Rotten Tomatoes.
Maximize video quality
Most people are satisfied with Netflix picture quality, whether they’re watching movies on their phone or on a widescreen TV. But what if you could improve the resolution?
It turns out you can, and pretty easily, as long as you’ve got a strong Wi-Fi connection. Just access Your Account and visit Playback Settings, and you’ll find an option to boost your picture quality to “High.”
Go international
This is a common shocker: People travel internationally, bringing their iPads along. They arrive at their hotel, log onto Wi-Fi and access Netflix.
But wait! What are all these weird movies?
Each country has its selection of films and TV, and many mainstays that are U.S. entertainment are not included. How to fix it? Subscribe to Mediahint, which lets you “unblock content” almost anywhere on the globe.
Prevent spoilers with Flix
If you use Google Chrome and hate to ruin movie endings, you might try Flix Plus. It can block text and images from your screen that might reveal too much about a given movie or show.
After all, there’s nothing worse than watching A Christmas Prince for the first time and learning that Richard is actually … oh, wait, you’ll just have to download it and see. You can listen to the Kim Komando Show on your phone, tablet or computer.