My friend and I want to watch Netflix together over Skype.
Our current solution is to pause an episode at 0:00 and hit "Play" simultaneously. Unfortunately, this means manually re-syncing playback if we need to pause for any reason, or the video stops to buffer.
Is there a better way to watch Netflix with an online friend?
Best Answer
In case you're still looking for a solution to this, you could try twoseven.xyz.
It currently supports synchronized viewing (play/pause/seek/video-change) on YouTube, Vimeo and Netflix while allowing you and your friends to video/text chat with one another without needing any additional software (like Skype/Hangouts). In case you're concerned about privacy, the video chat is purely peer-to-peer(P2P) and we're working on making the text chat use the same P2P channel.
I should also point out that to synchronize Netflix, you would need to install a Chrome extension that enables twoseven.xyz to react to user's actions on the Netflix page.
Disclaimer: I'm the author
There are other solutions to the problem. rabb.it and showgoers.tv probably being the most popular.
rabb.it
This website gives you unlimited content sharing potential. If you and your friend(s) want to be looking at the same thing on the internet (whatever it is), rabb.it could be your solution. It works by creating a desktop 'session' in the cloud and giving you and your friends access to this session. Think of it like teamviewer or VNC with multiple participants.
The downsides of rabb.it are that the keyboard/mouse is shared between all users. So, if someone moves the mouse, it moves for you. Typically, you're given a Chrome browser and asked to navigate to the content you want to share. This means potentially entering passwords on a browser that is not yours. You also share your browser history with a third-party. Since this is essentially equivalent to streaming a desktop session, there can also be loss in quality from time to time.
showgoers.tv
Currently supports netflix synchronization via an extension and also provides text chat capabilities.