UltraWideo vs Ultrawidify – Which One Should You Use?

What Do These Extensions Do?

If you have an ultrawide monitor, you've probably noticed black bars on the sides (or top and bottom) of most videos. Both UltraWideo and Ultrawidify fix that by resizing the video so it fills more of your screen.

They take different routes to get there. Ultrawidify is built around automatic aspect-ratio detection: it reads the video's frames, finds black bars baked into the picture, and crops them away, with crop presets like 21:9 as a manual fallback. It's free, and its source code is public on GitHub. UltraWideo is built around fill modes (Upscale, Stretch, Custom) that work on almost any site out of the box, including DRM-protected streaming services, plus gestures and a toolbar popup. Its free tier covers the core features, and an optional Pro tier adds extras.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Store figures are as of September 2026. UltraWideo has 70,000 users on the Chrome Web Store (4.2 from 587 ratings) and 15,572 daily users on Firefox Add-ons (4.4 from 238 ratings). It has no separate Microsoft Edge listing; Edge users install it from the Chrome Web Store. Ultrawidify has 60,000 users on the Chrome Web Store (3.4 from 333 ratings), 7,086 daily users on Firefox Add-ons (4.2 from 124 ratings), and 29,487 users on Microsoft Edge Add-ons (3.5 from 59 ratings). Its Firefox and Edge listings are on version 5.1.7 from January 2024. The newer 6.x line is on Chrome only.

The Interface

UltraWideo keeps its controls in a standard browser popup. Click the UltraWideo icon in your toolbar, or press Alt + Shift + V (Ctrl + Cmd + V on macOS), to pick a mode, adjust scale and pan, or switch it off (everywhere on the free tier, or just for one site or page with Pro). No controls are added to the pages you visit, apart from a small confirmation pill when you change the mode with a shortcut or gesture, and the Letterbox Measure overlay while you're using it. The popup has Light, Dark, and Auto appearances, 16 accent colors, a Reduce motion option, and 41 interface languages you can switch between from inside the extension, without changing your browser language.

Ultrawidify has a popup too. On Chrome, version 6 also added an in-player menu that opens over the video player, switched on by default for new installs. Its settings go deeper than UltraWideo's: you can add your own crop and zoom ratios, rebind the single-key shortcut for each action, set the video's alignment, turn autodetection on or off per site, and point it at the right player element on sites it doesn't recognize. That's a lot to take in if you just want the bars gone, but it's handy if you like fine control. The interface is English only.

Black Bars, DRM, and Site Support

There are two kinds of black bars. The first kind comes from a mismatch between the video's shape and your screen, like a 16:9 video on a 21:9 monitor. Both extensions fix these by zooming or stretching. The second kind is baked into the video file itself, like a 2.39:1 movie delivered inside a 16:9 frame, and removing it means finding where the picture actually starts.

This is Ultrawidify's specialty. Its automatic detection checks video frames periodically and re-adjusts the crop when the aspect ratio changes mid-video, and it's free. The developer notes that it isn't 100% accurate, and its Chrome listing suggests turning autodetection off on battery power or if you run into performance issues. UltraWideo's equivalent is Letterbox (Pro). You click Detect, it samples a few frames, and the crop is saved to the scope you're editing (global, site, or page). Clear removes it.

Neither extension can detect bars automatically on DRM-protected streams like Netflix or Disney+, because the browser doesn't let extensions read the pixels of protected video. Ultrawidify's store listings say as much. On those sites, Ultrawidify falls back to manual crops (fit width, fit height, 21:9, or a custom ratio). UltraWideo's Letterbox offers a Measure tool instead: you drag over the top black bar, and it crops to match. UltraWideo's regular modes (Upscale, Stretch, Custom) work normally on DRM streams, because resizing a video doesn't require reading its pixels. Apart from Letterbox's Detect button, the only feature it switches off there is Ambient Light, which needs the video's colors.

On supported sites, the two behave differently out of the box. UltraWideo is active on every website as soon as you install it. Ultrawidify's defaults depend on the browser. On Chrome (version 6.x) it's on by default for YouTube and Twitch, plus Netflix and Disney+ in fullscreen and theater view and a few smaller sites. Everywhere else you turn it on from its popup, and its store listing says support elsewhere isn't guaranteed. The Firefox and Edge version (5.1.7) runs on every site by default, apart from a few it disables. If it can't find a site's player, its advanced settings let you pick the player element by hand.

Gestures & Controls

UltraWideo lets you control videos without opening the popup:

• Ctrl + Scroll wheel to switch between modes
• Ctrl + Alt + Scroll wheel to adjust the scale on the fly
• Pinch on your trackpad or touchscreen to cycle modes
• Alt + drag on the video to pan it

It also has three keyboard shortcuts (toggle on/off, cycle mode, open the popup), which you can rebind in your browser's extension shortcut settings.

Ultrawidify leans on single-key shortcuts instead: A for automatic detection, W and E to fit width or height, D for 21:9, R to reset, and more. You can change them inside the extension. It has no scroll-wheel or pinch gestures. Shift + mouse panning stopped working in version 6.0, which its changelog lists as a regression, so the current Chrome version repositions the video with alignment presets (top, center, bottom, left, right) instead.

Free vs Pro

Ultrawidify has no paid tier. Everything it does is free, including per-site settings.

UltraWideo's free tier includes all four modes (Normal, Upscale, Stretch, Custom), scale and pan, keyboard shortcuts, gestures, one global setting, appearance, accent colors, and languages. Pro costs $2.99/month or $29.90/year and adds per-site and per-page settings, Letterbox, Ambient Light, Enhance (sharpening that adapts to the video's resolution), Mode Manager (hide modes you never use from the cycle), and cloud sync that carries your settings between Chrome and Firefox. Ultrawidify has no automatic sync, but on Chrome you can export and import its settings as a file.

What Makes Each One Stand Out

Who Should Pick What?

Pick UltraWideo if you want it running on every site without setup. It's active on every site from the start, including Netflix, Disney+, and other DRM streaming services, and it's updated regularly on both Chrome and Firefox. The free version covers modes, scale, pan, shortcuts, and gestures. If you want extras like cropping baked-in black bars, ambient light, sharpening, or per-site settings, Pro costs $2.99/month or $29.90/year.

Pick Ultrawidify if you mostly watch YouTube or Twitch and want free automatic cropping of black bars baked into the video, or free per-site settings. It's also a good fit if you like crop ratio presets and deep settings, or you want an extension with its own Microsoft Edge Add-ons listing. On Chrome, sites outside its default list need to be switched on by hand, and on DRM services like Netflix you'll be cropping manually.