Is There a StrangerBeing App? Here’s How It Works on Your Phone

You already have it: StrangerBeing is a web app that runs in the browser on your phone, tablet or laptop. There’s no store listing to search for and nothing to download. If you want an icon, add the site to your home screen and it opens like any other app.

People still type “StrangerBeing app” into search, and it makes sense: on a phone, most things live behind an icon. The difference here is only where the icon comes from. You put it there yourself, from the browser, in about three taps. Stores are full of chat apps; this one skips the store entirely. Everything behind it is the same site, with the video door and the text door on the first screen.

Open strangerbeing.cam in Safari on an iPhone or Chrome on Android, use the browser’s Add to Home Screen option, and confirm. The icon lands with your other apps and opens StrangerBeing straight away, without the address bar in the way.

If the option doesn’t show, check that you’re in the phone’s main browser rather than a browser built into another app; those in-app windows usually hide it. Open the link in Safari or Chrome and try again.

Less than you’d think. A store app takes up storage and waits for updates; the browser version is always the current one, because every visit loads the latest site. You don’t need a store account, and there’s no install to remove if you stop using it.

Someone weighing up the best app to chat with strangers usually looks at storage and updates first, and on both counts the browser version comes out ahead. What stays the same: your browser still asks before the camera or microphone switches on, and you can withdraw that permission in the browser settings whenever you like. A college student who shares a laptop with a roommate can use it in a private window and leave no icon behind; someone who chats every evening on the couch will probably prefer the home-screen icon.

Prices don’t change either: there is no separate phone price list and no store purchase sheet, because coins and VIP are bought in the wallet on the site. How free matches and coins work is covered on is StrangerBeing free, and the click-by-click route through the site is in the StrangerBeing guide.

Both do. The video door uses your front camera and fills the screen in portrait, so the stranger sees you the way a normal video call would show you. Prop the phone against something; holding it at arm’s length for ten minutes gets tiring.

The text door suits a phone even better. On a train or in a waiting room you can type to someone new without anyone around you noticing. The chat opens as a message thread, and text messages can be translated automatically, which helps when the other person writes in a language you only half know. More on both modes: cam chat on your phone and the text door.

Only what the door you pick needs. The video door asks for camera and microphone access the first time you use it. The text door asks for nothing. There’s also a voice mode on the match screen that uses the microphone alone.

An app like this should ask for as little as possible. If you said no to the camera by accident, the video door won’t start. Fix it in the browser: on iPhone go to Settings, then Safari, then Camera; on Android tap the lock icon next to the address and allow camera and microphone for the site. The contact page lists a few more fixes if it still won’t work.

On a phone, two things decide whether a random chat app deserves a place on your screen: what it asks your phone for, and whether it needs installing at all. The wider questions, such as one-to-one matching and where the report button sits, are covered in the checklist on the Omegle alternative page.

You can check each of these on StrangerBeing in a minute: open the video door and see which permission prompt appears, then try the text door and notice that none does. Where the report and block buttons sit is shown on the page about whether StrangerBeing is safe.

If you’re after the best app to talk to strangers on a ten-minute break, the phone in your pocket is hard to beat. Waiting for laundry or lying in bed with the lights off, you can open the text door, say hello, and put the phone down again without ceremony.

A laptop wins for longer video chats. The camera sits still, the picture is steadier, and typing on a keyboard is quicker if a text chat turns into a long one. You might keep the phone for quick text chats in the daytime and the laptop for longer evening calls. Same site, same follows, same Messages list.