Although online dating is far from anything new and extraordinary, the attitude towards it in general society is still very ambiguous. For some, it represents the ideal format for dating in the 21st century. For others, it is an extreme measure they are unlikely to ever fall back to.
So where does the truth lie?
The truth, as they say, is always somewhere in the middle. And Omegle video chat is a vivid confirmation of this. Before we dive into our review of the service, let’s talk about the most significant pros and cons of online dating in general.
Advantages and disadvantages of online dating
Many people are firmly convinced that a promising friendship is possible only offline. They also often can’t objectively define their own position. They simply consider online dating as something wrong for them and can’t accept it as a dating format even in principle. This is a big mistake, because online dating really offers a lot of advantages:
- Saves a huge amount of time.
- Allows you to meet and communicate with people according to the parameters you specify: gender, age, location, interests, and more.
- Gives you the opportunity to make choices on your own, without the influence of friends or relatives who constantly try to help.
- Maintains informal communication and gives more freedom for self-expression.
- Always provides you with a variety of options to choose from.
For the modern person who is constantly busy and passionate about business, online dating often becomes the only way to arrange their personal life. Therefore, if you simply do not have enough time to meet and spend time with new people, we recommend that you abandon your prejudices and try online dating. You have nothing to lose and much to gain.
However, with all the advantages of online dating, it’s all too easy to overlook some of the disadvantages. And these are also present in web dating:
- More than 60% of all users of dating sites and apps prefer to tell lies about themselves. Women tend to lie about their age and weight. And men, about their height and amount of hair. Yes, this is not a joke.
- Online communication does not always make it possible to get to know a person well before the first real meeting. Because of this, the encounter itself is often disappointing.
- Due to long distances, offline meeting between users is not always possible. Or it’s at least very difficult.
Some of these disadvantages are not typical for online video chat services such as Omegle, where communication takes place via video. At least here you immediately see a person, you can objectively assess their appearance, age, way of interacting, and so on. This is why Omegle video chat and its rivals are increasingly replacing classic online dating.
Omegle video chat: then, now and popular alternatives
Omegle video chat was essentially a pioneer in the field of random chat. And in many ways, it changed the very principles of dating on the internet, opening up something completely new for users instead of dating sites like Match.com and the many clones of it that have already become familiar. But how exactly did this happen?
The history of Omegle video chat
The Omegle website launched on March 25, 2009, and was developed by 18-year-old Leif K-Brooks from Brattleboro, Vermont. At that time, there was nothing like this online, so random video chat began to rapidly gain popularity. Less than a month after launch, Omegle had about 150,000 visits per day. Six months later, a video chat function appeared on the site, which attracted even more audience interest.
It was truly a phenomenal success. The only problem is that the developer himself was not ready for this success. Until 2013, the Omegle site was essentially unmoderated. Insults, trolling and fraud became quite commonplace here. Only in 2013 did the situation begin to gradually improve as more effort was directed into moderation. Unfortunately, by this time, Omegle’s reputation had already been slightly damaged, and users were increasingly moving to other sites. There were many alternatives to Omegle by that time, but we will return to them a little later.
Advantages and disadvantages of Omegle
Despite its rather impressive age by the standards of the internet, Omegle video chat is still popular. And the recent Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic helped the site to significantly increase its active audience.
However, as with traditional dating sites, in addition to the obvious advantages, Omegle also has significant disadvantages. Let’s talk about both in more details
Advantages of Omegle:
- No registration. You can go to the site, select “Text” or “Video”, and in a couple of seconds you’re chatting with a random person.
- Language filter. Thanks to this, you can always understand the people you communicate with. It is also a great opportunity to improve your language skills by talking to native speakers of the language you are currently learning.
- Convenient search by interests. You simply enter a list of your interests in a special field, and Omegle tries to select the most suitable people for you.
- Separate chat for students. Here you can chat with other students of your college or university.
Disadvantages of Omegle:
- Video chat still has pretty mediocre moderation that hasn’t gotten much better in recent years.
- Omegle doesn’t even have a simple gender filter. Therefore, if you want to communicate only with the opposite gender, certain difficulties may arise.
- Omegle video chat is only available in website format. There are still no mobile apps. And it is not known when they will appear. You can, of course, use the web version on your smartphone, but it’s nowhere near as convenient as a standalone app.
The best Omegle alternatives
Those who are almost unfamiliar with the video chat format will be surprised by the sheer number of such sites. There are many high-quality alternatives to Omegle. And it’s easy to get lost in this diversity, which is why we’re here to help! We offer for consideration several online platforms that have proven themselves well:
- Chatroulette essentially the first ever chatroulette. The site was launched six months after Omegle, but it was here that video chat first appeared, not just text chat. This means that Chatroulette is not an alternative to Omegle, but rather the opposite.
- CooMeet a popular alternative to Omegle chat, the main advantage of which is a unique gender filter. CooMeet can only connect men with girls, which greatly simplifies the search for a potential soulmate. And thanks to the verification of accounts in CooMeet, there are no fakes or bots, which is critically important for many. Plus, there is a built-in message translator, thanks to which communication with foreign speakers becomes even more comfortable.
- Bazoocam a classic video chat that doesn’t differ much from Omegle. We can only identify two major differences. The first is built-in online mini-games that you can play with other players, and the second is its own video streaming platform, which often contains content of a very explicit nature.
- OmeTV a minimalistic alternative to Omegle that has only the most basic functionality: gender and language filters, and a built-in message translator. By and large, that’s all. But many users do not need more.
- Azar a mobile video chat service that combines a dating app, video chat and messenger at the same time. For some, such extensive functionality will be a significant advantage, for others a disadvantage. Therefore, we recommend that you try Azar and draw your own conclusions.
- Chathub a simple alternative to Omegle that has only gender and language filters in its search settings. Chathub doesn’t even have a mobile app, but the web version works great on smartphones too.
- Tinychat not exactly a classic video chat, but rather a video streaming service. If you like the streaming format, Tinychat will also appeal to you. You can either watch other people’s broadcasts or conduct your own streams at any time.
- BIGO LIVE another video streaming platform, but mainly focused on gaming. We can recommend this platform primarily to those who love video games and understand them well. BIGO LIVE will help you find like-minded gamers and have a good time.
Of course, there are many more high-quality random video chat services, so you can look at many more alternatives than those above to find one that’s right for you. We simply recommend that you start your search with these Omegle alternatives in order to quickly understand the video chat format and how everything works there.
Online dating is here to stay
Today, classic online dating services and random video chat sites are developing in parallel. Both formats have a large and loyal audience. And it continues to increase continuously, because online dating really looks like a very promising direction for single contemporaries.
In the near future we will surely see many more interesting alternatives to popular dating sites and applications, and online video chats. In the meantime, we recommend that you focus on the sites listed above, as they have proven themselves well, and have been gathering a huge audience of users for many years now.
