The myth that you have to install something first
You do not. Random video chat runs inside the browser already on your phone or laptop, using the camera it already has. There is no client to download, no app store step and no account to make first. The only thing you grant is camera and microphone access, and that is a permission you can withdraw at any time.
Where does the "you have to install something" idea come from?
From two earlier eras, both real at the time: the years when browsers could not run video on their own, and the app store years that followed. For years, video on the web genuinely needed an extra piece bolted onto the browser, and a whole generation learned that a camera on a website meant a download first. Then the app store era taught the same lesson from the other direction: if you wanted to talk to strangers on video, you got an app, an account and a set of standing permissions before you saw anybody. Both eras are over — browsers have handled live video natively for a long time — but the expectation outlived them. It also suits any company that would rather have an app on your phone than a tab you can close.
Is the camera permission prompt an install?
No, and the confusion makes sense, because it is the only pop-up in the whole process. What that prompt does is ask the browser to let one specific site use one specific device for as long as you leave it allowed. Nothing is written to your machine that you would later uninstall, nothing runs once the tab is closed, and the permission is per-site — allowing it here says nothing about anywhere else. You can revoke it in your browser's site settings in a few taps, and revoking it breaks nothing. If you want to look before you allow, closing the tab at that point leaves nothing behind.
What do you actually need to start?
Four things: a reasonably current browser, a camera and microphone, a connection that can carry live video, and being 18 or over. No email, no password, no phone number, no profile to fill in before you can see anyone. Matching and saying hello are free to start; longer video calls and some extras run on coins, and anything that costs something says so before it costs it. On a phone, the browser you already use is the browser this runs in — no particular one is required. The whole path from opening the page to being in a conversation is a permission prompt and a tap.
What about the "add to home screen" option?
It installs nothing, and it is optional. Adding the page to your home screen creates a shortcut icon that opens it like an app, which is convenient if you use it often and unnecessary otherwise. It does not come from an app store, it does not ask for anything the site does not already have, and removing it is deleting a shortcut. Nothing is unlocked by it either — same site, same features, same account-free start. If you have been putting this off because you did not want another app on your phone, that shortcut is the entire concession being asked of you, and you can skip it.
Do I need to install anything on a phone?
No. The mobile browser and the camera in your hand are the whole toolkit. Two phone-specific things are worth knowing. First, the camera prompt sometimes appears twice — once from the browser and once from the operating system — and both need allowing before anything happens. Second, the in-app browsers that open when you tap a link inside another app often restrict camera access; if the camera will not start there, opening the same link in your normal browser almost always fixes it. Neither of those is an install, and neither takes more than a few seconds.
What can stop it working, if not a missing app?
An out-of-date browser, a permission you blocked before, a camera another program is holding, a restricted network, or private browsing — five things, and none of them is a download. The out-of-date browser is the one case where updating something really is the fix. A permission you blocked on an earlier visit sticks until you clear it in site settings, which is why the prompt never reappears. A camera another program is already holding tends to fail quietly rather than tell you, so close the video call you left open. Work and school networks block live video deliberately, and so do some restricted browsing modes. If it will not start, it is nearly always one of those five.
Is the browser version worse than an app?
For this, mostly the opposite. An app has to be found, downloaded, updated and given standing permissions, and it stays on your phone long after you lose interest. A tab is opened and closed. The quality question is settled — browsers have carried live video natively for years, and what actually limits your picture is light, bandwidth and how busy your machine is, not where the code came from. The honest trade is that an app can send you notifications and a tab cannot, which is a feature or a relief depending on how you feel about being interrupted.
Related: why a choppy picture reads as rude and what to do when the other person goes quiet. For the paid side in plain terms, see what "free" actually covers on the blog.
Nothing to download. Open a tab.
Confirm you are 18 or over, allow your camera, and you are in. Free to start, no account.