Is there a Dinchat app?
Dinchat is a web app. It runs in the browser on your phone, tablet or computer, and there is nothing to download. You do not need a download button.
What you can do is put Dinchat on your home screen, which takes three taps and gives you an icon that opens full-screen, without the browser's address bar. For everyday use it behaves like any other app on your phone. The "Get Dinchat App" prompt you may see at the foot of the page does this same thing: it puts the site on your home screen, and no file is fetched from a store. The next two sections show how to do it by hand on iPhone and Android.
How do you add Dinchat to an iPhone home screen?
Through Safari's Share menu. It takes about ten seconds, and you only do it once.
- 1
Open dinchat.cam in Safari
Use Safari itself. Other iPhone browsers do not always offer the home-screen option.
- 2
Tap the Share button
It is the square with an arrow pointing up, in the bar at the bottom or top of the screen.
- 3
Choose Add to Home Screen
Scroll the share sheet if you do not see it at first, then tap Add. The Dinchat icon appears among your apps.
From then on, tap the icon instead of typing the address. You may start as a new guest the first time you open it from the icon, because a phone can keep the icon's data apart from the browser's.
How do you add Dinchat to an Android home screen?
Through the browser menu in Chrome. The wording differs a little between phone makers, but the steps are the same.
- 1
Open dinchat.cam in Chrome
Most other Android browsers have the same option under a similar name.
- 2
Tap the three-dot menu
Top right corner of the browser.
- 3
Choose Add to Home screen
On some phones it says Install app. Confirm, and the icon lands on your home screen.
Can you use Dinchat on a PC or Mac?
Yes. Open dinchat.cam in a current version of Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox and it works on a laptop or desktop the same way it does on a phone, with more room on screen. A built-in webcam and microphone are enough; a headset is a nice extra.
The first time you start a call, the browser shows a small prompt asking whether this site may use your camera and microphone. Choose Allow. If you dismissed it by accident, click the padlock or settings icon next to the address bar, find Camera and Microphone, and switch them to Allow. For a voice match only the microphone matters.
Web version or store app: what actually changes?
Mostly the housekeeping. The things you came for, seeing who is online and talking to them, are the same once you are in.
Dinchat in the browser compared with a typical installed app | Dinchat in your browser | A typical installed app |
|---|
| Getting it | Open the address | Find it in a store, download, install |
| Storage used | Next to nothing | Space for the app and its data |
| Updates | Always the current version when you open it | Downloaded now and then |
| Permissions | Camera and microphone, asked when you start a call | Whatever the app requests at install and later |
| Account needed to start | No, you begin as a guest | Often yes |
| Home-screen icon | Yes, if you add it | Yes |
Do you need an APK file?
No. An APK is an Android installation file, and Dinchat does not need one because there is nothing to install. The browser is the app.
A word of caution while we are on the subject. Installation files offered on download sites you do not know are a common way for unwanted software to get onto phones. If a page asks you to switch off your phone's protections in order to install something, close it. You lose nothing by using the browser version.
What works the same on every device?
Everything that matters. Whether you are on an iPhone, an Android phone, a Windows laptop or a Mac, you get the same Dinchat.
- Who's online, including viewing the list by country.
- Random Match, by video or by voice.
- Profiles with the buttons to message, start a video call and follow.
- Messages with automatic translation, and typing during a call.
- The match screen, laid out the same way, with your free matches and the Reward Center where you expect them.
What each of these does is on the Dinchat features page. New to all of it? Start with how Dinchat works.
What changes when you open Dinchat from the icon?
Three things, all of them small.
It opens full-screen
No address bar and no browser tabs, so the call gets the whole display. To go back a step, use the controls inside Dinchat or your phone's own back gesture.
It may treat you as a new visitor at first
Some phones store an icon's data separately from the browser's. If that happens you arrive as a fresh guest. Anything you want to keep across the two, the people you follow for instance, is what signing in is for.
Permissions may be asked again
The camera and microphone prompt can come up once more the first time you start a call from the icon. Allow it as you did in the browser.
Changed your mind? Remove the icon the way you would remove any app: press and hold it, then choose Remove or Delete. Nothing else is left behind, because nothing else was installed.
Why is the camera or microphone not working?
Nine times out of ten it is a permission. Work down this list in order; each step takes a few seconds.
- Check the site permission. In the browser's site settings for dinchat.cam, Camera and Microphone should both say Allow.
- Check the phone or computer permission. In your device's privacy settings, the browser itself needs access to the camera and microphone.
- Close other apps using the camera. A video-meeting app left open in the background can hold on to it.
- Reload the page. A permission you have just changed usually takes effect after a refresh.
- Try another browser. If Safari or Chrome is misbehaving, the other one often works straight away.
- Restart the device. Old advice, still effective.
Still stuck? Write to us with your device and browser. The address is on the contact page.
