Did you know: if you stream Netflix on your Mac using Safari, you can watch content in 4K. But every other browser is limited to 1080p.
Safari is the Only Browser on Mac that Supports 4K Netflix Streaming
A lot of people use Chrome for browsing the web, mainly because it’s faster than Safari. But if you lift the lid a little and look at things closely, that’s where you’ll start to see some oddities.
For the longest time, Chrome has been limited to 720p when streaming Netflix on the Mac. But with recent updates, it has started to support 1080p playback.
A lot of people don’t care about this at all. Limiting resolution not only means streaming will feel quicker, but you lose a lot of quality, especially if you’re paying for 4K playback.
With Safari, you can play everything on Netflix in 4K as long as you’re running macOS 11.0 or higher. If your Mac is running macOS 10.15, you’ll be limited to 1080p only.
If you head over to Netflix’s support page, Safari is the only browser listed as supporting 4K streaming, whereas Chrome, Firefox, and Opera are limited to 1080p.
Here’s a fun one: if you’re using Microsoft Edge, it’s limited to 720p streaming only.
So, to wrap things up, Safari is the only web browser on the Mac that supports 4K Netflix. Do what you want with that information.
