How to view Netflix Instant Viewing in Firefox

26Feb07

One of the many questions people seem to have about Netflix’s instant viewing feature is about support for other browsers and operating systems.  There may not be a way to view instant viewing on a Mac yet (unless you run parallels  or bootcamp) but there is a way to use instant viewing in firefox.  Technically, it is just running Internet Explorer in a tab but at least you don’t have to open up a seperate window for IE. 

1.) Install IE tab for Firefox – Download Here

2.) In the Menu bar in Firefox, go to Tools, then IE Tab Options

IE Tab Options 1

3.) In Sites Filter, add the URL http://*.netflix.com/*

IE Tab Options 2

4.) Push Ok

Congratulation, you are now able to view Netflix’s instant viewing content through Firefox.  Anytime you go to the Netflix website, it will use the IE rendering engine to view the page. 

Using IE tabs to view instant viewing content is unsupported by Netflix.  Instant viewing is only supported with IE 6 or IE 7.


Filed under: Netflix Watch Instantly   |  18 Comments

18 Responses to “How to view Netflix Instant Viewing in Firefox”  

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  1. 1 Busy Hands on March 2, 2007 said:

    This isn’t really a good solution. I’m only able to access the internet via Firefox, IE is blocked. I get the block page when I try this. :(

    Hopefully someone has a better solution.

    Reply
  2. 2 smashedlife on March 2, 2007 said:

    There really isn’t any other solution until Netflix develops a player for Firefox. Instant viewing can only be run in IE6 or IE7 right now so if you can not run IE for some reason, you will just have to wait.

    Reply
  3. 3 heylovie on August 13, 2007 said:

    Great fix! IE sometimes doesn’t even run the instant watch natively very well, this works much better.

    Reply
  4. 4 just checking on August 23, 2007 said:

    does instant viewing work with netscape browser or any others besides IE or firefox (with tab)?

    Reply
  5. 5 Joe Hughes on August 31, 2007 said:

    I tried this but error message looking for javascript (which iis enabled) and ActiveX. I don’t have IE on my machine and don’t want it! Is there a fix for this ?

    Reply
  6. 6 smashedlife on September 1, 2007 said:

    No you have to have IE. The Netflix movie viewer is an ActiveX Plugin.

    Reply
  7. 7 Nathan Mahon on January 14, 2008 said:

    actually… there’s a mozilla activex replacement of some sort… but i’ve no idea if it works for netflix. I’ve only used it so steam (counterstrike) can access the web content under linux.

    Reply
  8. 8 Peachply on June 23, 2008 said:

    I just purchased a new Apple running OS X and the fix is not compatible with my Operating System. It will only work for older versions as well as older versions of Firefox I think. This is a total bummer. IE is not supported on my system as well.
    Any suggestions???

    Reply
  9. 9 i38warhawk on August 5, 2008 said:

    Awesome solution, thanks for putting up the guide.

    Reply
  10. 10 revelie on December 14, 2008 said:

    upgraded to vista64 and coulnd not run netflix. added this plug-in and it works great.

    Reply
  11. 11 Teri on February 13, 2009 said:

    Great fix! For some reason the Netflix Movie Viewer would crash my Internet Explorer right as the movie launched. I followed this, and it’s playing perfectly through firefox now. :) Thanks for the fix!

    Reply
  12. 12 foxrafer on February 21, 2009 said:

    Thank you so much. This works perfectly.

    Reply
  13. 13 Dylan Hooper on March 21, 2009 said:

    This add on seems to work for me so far, remember to hit apply before you hit ok

    Reply
  14. 14 Heather on April 16, 2009 said:

    Thanks! Exactly the fix I was looking for!

    Reply
  15. 15 Xiuide on April 26, 2009 said:

    Acually this is outdated info. Netflix now uses silverlight for instant veiwing and microsoft has a native version for firefox. Just google silverlight and install version 2.0

    Reply
  16. 16 Clickbank Code on May 27, 2009 said:

    Seems like if you have to download an Internet Explorer extension that you might as well watch it in Internet Explorer (even though IE sucks!). I can’t believe people even still use Internet Explorer.

    You would think a large company like Netflix would have enough common sense to make their viewing platform viewable in different browser BY NOW. I’ve been with them for a long time. What the heck are they doing anyways?

    Reply
  17. 17 Respectable Reviews on October 9, 2009 said:

    Thank you! I was have trouble getting it to work since I switched from IE. Thanks for these tips – I didn’t know about the IE plugin.

    Reply

  1. 1 Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection - Watch Netflix Movies In Your Firefox Browser

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