Watching Netflix from Google Chrome or Firefox is an error: explanation

news material Watching Netflix from Google Chrome or Firefox is an error: explanation

Google Chrome: the star of web browsers is probably one of the worst choices available today in general

About 2 out of 3 people have Google Chrome installed on their computer, whether it’s a Mac or a PC.

Chrome is quite pretty, of course, but it is an extremely greedy browser: a few tabs are enough to heat up the most standard machines. If you want to work with 50 open tabs in Google Chrome, you better have a fighter jet that has 32 GB of RAM.

Worse: Google Chrome is a rather slow browser compared to the competition, all the benchmarks prove it. When we browse the internet, we are above all looking for fluidity, right? So why is Google Chrome so dominant in the small world of web browsers?

Surely because most people have their little habits and don’t know that importing passwords or plugins is extremely simple. Honestly, it is difficult to find other rational explanations today.

This article is not stupid and nasty “Google bashing”, I myself use the Google eco-system on a daily basis, I quite appreciate the brand’s products and services. It’s just factual: Chrome isn’t cutting edge at all.

Why watching Netflix from Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox is an error?

Yes, watching Netflix on a PC screen is obviously not ideal. If it’s possible for you, nothing beats a big 4K TV with an OLED screen, Dolby Atmos / Vision compatible and accompanied by a good sound system. Certainly.

The thing is, most people don’t have such a setup at home, and almost everyone hears Netflix’s “Tudum” almost every day on laptop speakers, from the MacBook Air to the High performance gaming laptop. Already that it is not ideal, so much to optimize what is optimizable for 0€: the browser.

Netflix has very strong DRM requirements. FYI, DRM stands for Digital Rights Managementthis is the anti-piracy system that prevents video screenshots on the platform. Problem: Not all browsers are equal when it comes to DRM technologies.

Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox use the same technology called Widevine. Netflix considers Widevine to be nowhere near good enough. As a “punishment”, the VOD giant restricts all its content to 720p on Chrome and Firefox.

Do you pay a 4K subscription at €18 per month? Do you have a Liquid Retina XDR screen from the last MacBook Pro paid nearly 3000€ with a 2K resolution? Do you have fiber optic patient flow? Too bad for you. If you use Chrome or Firefox, you will never exceed this mediocre resolution.

Netflix: what are the best browsers, alternatives to Google Chrome, to take full advantage of it?

Several solutions are available to you. The simplest and most effective is to stay on the default browsers of your computers.

• For a PC, Microsoft Edge is an excellent browser on which it is possible to watch Netflix in 4K.

Since Microsoft Edge moved to Chromium in 2020 and accepts all extensions normally reserved for Google Chrome, there is in our view no major interest in installing a slower and more resource-consuming browser than the one installed by default .

• For a Mac, Safari does the job.

Apple uses a DRM technology that largely satisfies Netflix since macOS Big Sur. The browser is generally perfectly optimized for Apple machines, again, apart from some connoisseurs who will prefer Opera for example, it is not very useful to download anything else.

• In both cases, we advise you to go through applications as soon as possible: an app is always better optimized than a browser. In the case of Netflix, the official app is free on the Microsoft Store for Windows computers and on the App Store for Mac.

Of course, to display pretty 4K, it is better to have a solid internet connection of at least 25 Mbits / s and a screen compatible with Ultra HD.