What you need to know about online dating services

Today the internet has become not only a limitless source of information for us, as well as a platform for entertainment and communication, but also an excellent tool for finding your soulmate. Every year more and more people come round to the idea that online dating is a really convenient, fast and promising way to find your love. Indeed, today about 18% of all marriages around the world are the result of online dating.

There are huge numbers of sites and applications where you can meet new people. In addition, many dating sites optimize this process in every possible way, offering personality tests, automatic selection of potential partners using smart algorithms and artificial intelligence, selection via dozens of criteria and filters...

All of this is great, but as often happens, there is one caveat…

The fact is that in internet dating, not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance, and as the marketers are trying to convince us. Undoubtedly, online dating offers a lot of advantages. But still, there are several serious problems and risks that users sometimes don’t think about or simply ignore. And these must be taken into account. Therefore, we want to talk about some of these problematic points, and explain to you how they can be eliminated.

The dark side of online dating

We've broken down the major problems of modern web dating into three main categories. Although to be completely honest, it’s not hard to identify many more.

1. Too many users. When you first register on Tinder, for example, the huge number of potential partners is very inspiring and gives you hope that within such variety you will definitely find the One. But quickly comes the understanding that too much is not always good. Too many potential partners complicates the selection process and can cause stress, insecurity and disappointment. In addition, not all users of online dating services are really interested in building relationships or looking for the same things as you. Some of them may be married, secretly looking for sexual partners, or trolls and scammers.

2. Limited communication by texting. Despite the fact that most popular dating services already have a video chat function, the vast majority of users continue to communicate the “old way” in text chat. This, first of all, is not very convenient. Secondly, it takes a lot of time. And thirdly, it does not give you the opportunity to form an objective impression about the other person. Texting can be too deceptive: the other user may lie about their history, exaggerate their strengths or hide flaws, use other people's photos, or even pretend to be another person.

3. Lots of fakes and bots. This is perhaps one of the most serious problems in modern web dating. There are many fakes and bots, especially if we are talking about the most popular dating sites and apps, where the moderation services simply cannot cope with this endless stream. Attackers use various methods to attract attention and manipulate you. They write compliments, flirt and then ask for money, scam personal data or intimate photos, ask you to go to another (malicious) site or download a potentially dangerous application, and so on.

There’s a lot of useful information on the web about what security rules you need to follow when dating on the internet: do not transfer personal data, do not share contacts, do not open suspicious links, do not download unverified files, and so on. These are familiar truths, but many forget about them...

We’d like to offer a different solution…

Want to avoid unpleasant and dangerous encounters? Use Omegle and similar apps!

Perhaps one of the most effective and easiest ways to understand what kind of person is in front of you (and whether it’s a person, not a bot) is to chat with them via video. So if you already get acquainted on dating sites and apps, we recommend that you quickly transfer communication to video.

However an even more effective option is to get acquainted via video, for example, using random video chat services like Omegle. The principle of such video chat apps is extremely simple: you go to the site or launch the application, click "Start", and in a moment the system connects you with a random person. You see them, hear their voice, read facial expressions, gestures, style of communication, mood and emotions. No text messaging app gives the same sense of presence as video communication.

However, Omegle was far from the most functional and flexible chatroulette. There was no gender filter, and it was not even possible to select a country to search for a chat partner. You were able to only pick your language and list of interests. If you need more customization, you will need an Omegle alternative. Fortunately, there are more than enough options nowadays. Here are just a few of them:

• Chatous — a great alternative to Omegle for smartphones, which also has the ability to search for people of interest and a very convenient built-in messenger. You can chat, send photos, audio and video, as well as send self-deleting messages. This is sometimes very convenient and useful from a privacy point of view.

• Hoop on OMG — sort of a combination of random video chat and social network. Here you can create your own profile with basic information, view the profiles of other members and chat live. The app also has its own internal currency — coins, which can be earned and spent on various additional features.

• OmeTV — a good alternative to Omegle, offering its users a gender filter, a message translator and pretty good mobile apps. Otherwise, this is a classic chatroulette with all of the expected advantages and disadvantages.

• OmegleTV — another worthy alternative to Omegle, the main advantage of which is an unbeatable gender filter that connects men only with girls, saving a lot of time and effort. In addition, OmegleTV has convenient mobile apps for iOS and Android, an age filter, a built-in message translator as OmeTV, an equivalent to Instagram Stories, and an excellent moderation service.

If you’ve already tried Omegle and feel that you are missing some functionality, just use one of the listed video chats. Surely among them there’s something interesting for you. Or you can search the web for other interesting alternatives. There are many of them today!

What precautions should be taken when communicating via video chat

Basically, the same rules apply here as for traditional web dating: do not follow suspicious links, do not disclose personal data, etc. However, there are some special rules associated specifically with video communication.

Remember that the other person sees not only you, but also what surrounds you. Therefore, before meeting in video chat, we strongly recommend that you tidy up your surroundings. Remove everything from the frame that an attacker can use in any way: bank cards, letters with your address, a notebook with personal notes, photos, and the like. Of course, it is not at all necessary to make your environment absolutely sterile and empty. Just try to make sure that the other person does not see anything that they should not see and that could somehow compromise you.

Otherwise, we’d say that video communication is much safer and more practical than texting. There are far fewer scammers and other offenders in video chats because they prefer not to show their faces. For them, traditional dating services like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and so on remain a much more comfortable space.

But in any case, you must remember that your safety on the web is solely in your hands. Even a service with the best moderation will not provide you with 100% protection. Therefore, remain vigilant, be attentive and try to get to know the other user as well as possible before meeting them in real life.

Stay tuned.