Netflix announced on Twitter that, having taken into account the negative reviews of users regarding the automatic previews playing before watching videos, it now gives users the option to disable, if they wish, arguably the most annoying feature of the service. This new setting will be officially announced with the celebration of Netflix's 167 million subscribers worldwide, many of whom occasionally complain about this element of browsing.
It should be clarified at this point that there are two different types of autoplay on Netflix. The first type is a feature that all Netflix users love - automatically playing the next episode of a TV show or series without the user having to select it each time.
The second type is auto-play previews. When this setting is enabled, video trailers automatically start playing. This can be very tedious and annoying for a user who is trying to browse the menu, looking for something to watch. For example, if a user pauses browsing for a moment to read the summary of a movie or series, the trailer will immediately start playing, preventing the user from continuing to read the summary.
Netflix now allows its customers to toggle between the two types of autoplay. The settings are specific to user profiles on a Netflix account, so if you share your account with other family members, adjusting the setting on one profile won't affect the others. However, any changes to a profile's settings will apply across all devices.
Finally, there are some steps you can follow if you want to disable auto-playing previews on Netflix.
First, you need to log in to account from a web browser. On the “Who's watching?” screen, click the “Manage Profiles” button below the lineup of profile icons. (If you're looking at the Netflix dashboard, hover over your profile avatar in the upper-right corner of the screen, and in the menu below the list of profiles, you'll see “Manage Profile.”) Then, click the profile for which you want to change the setting. Under the autoplay controls, uncheck the “Autoplay previews while browsing on all devices” box.
