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.



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

  1. 1 Busy Hands

    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.

  2. 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.

  3. 3 heylovie

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

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

  5. 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 ?

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

  7. 7 Nathan Mahon

    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.

  8. 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???

  9. Awesome solution, thanks for putting up the guide.

  10. 10 revelie

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

  11. 11 Teri

    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!

  12. 12 foxrafer

    Thank you so much. This works perfectly.

  13. 13 Dylan Hooper

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

  14. 14 Heather

    Thanks! Exactly the fix I was looking for!

  15. 15 Xiuide

    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

  16. 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?

  17. 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.


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

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