Earlier this week, Robby wrote an article about the delayed rollout of Chrome OS 80 and the new features that are coming to Chromebooks. One of those new features is Netflix picture-in-picture (PiP), but we weren’t able to test it due to Netflix disappearing from the Play Store. I was hopeful the app would show up today so that we could test the new PiP feature, but even with a fresh install of the Play Store on the Pixel Slate, it is still not available. Luckily, the Netflix web player is fully-functional on a Chromebook and with a simple extension, you can watch your favorite show using picture-in-picture right now without the Android app.
To get this working, you will first need to add this Picture-in-Picture extension that is made by Google to Chrome. After adding the extension, open Netflix on your Chromebook, queue up the latest episode of your favorite show or movie, and press Alt + P. Then, you can easily resize and drag the floating window anywhere on your screen. Keep in mind you must leave the original tab open, but you can minimize it to clean up your workspace if you want.
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The Netflix PiP mode in the Android app will be a nice feature moving forward because it will just work out-of-the-box and you won’t need to use any other extensions. But if you are like me and try to use the web version of services when available, this trick has been useful and works consistently.
I have always enjoyed picture-in-picture because it allows you to more easily multitask on your Chromebook. It is particularly useful when you are just casually browsing the web or doing something simple like shopping on Amazon: just install the picture-in-picture extension and enjoy your favorite Netflix show playing in the corner of your screen while you get other things done.
