Chatstep Review January 2019

Chatstep lets its users choose if they want to access their chatrooms anonymously or through a registered account. When choosing to browse the website anonymously, you have to pick a chatroom first from the available public chatrooms list. Once you have chosen one, you will decide on a username, and if you want, you could also nominate a password so you could go back anytime to that room. After agreeing to the website’s terms and conditions, you are successfully inside your chosen chatroom. Now, once you want to leave the room, you can just do so by exiting the tab. This would delete your chat message history.

If you choose to register an account, you could do so by providing basic information such as email, username, password, and then answer a captcha. An account verification link would be sent to your email to successfully activate your account. Registered users can create a chatroom and set it to public or private. You also have to manually click the ‘leave room’ button from the chatroom’s menu bar on the left-hand side to permanently pull out from the room.

Creating a room is strictly for registered users. You set the room’s content by ticking if your room is a ‘clean room’ or if explicit and/or adult content will be shared in your room. You will also set the category of your room—that being; ‘Friendly’, which circles on communities, regional, and social interests, ‘Fantasy’ for role-playing and exploration, and lastly, ‘Image’, which is an image-focused chat. Users that create chat rooms are required to write descriptions and set chat room guidelines, which would be made available to any user who wishes to join. If a password is set, only those that you give the password to would be able to access your chatroom.

Registered users can join rooms if they know the chatroom name and if there is a set password for the specific chatroom they wish to join.

Public rooms are available both for registered users and anonymous users. The only difference is, when you are a registered user, you have to manually leave the room if you wish to be no longer part of it. If you are an anonymous user, closing the tab would automatically exit you from the room.

Chatstep’s website was built to provide a very simple chatroom service platform. The site’s features are easily accessible—in fact, once you log in to your account, you are redirected to a pop-up dashboard that shows the website’s 3 main features which are; Create, Join, and Public. Clicking any of these 3 buttons would take you to the respective destinations or page where you need to input the necessary details to complete your desired action. The only downside of this default redirection is that the side menu which contains the My Settings, Help, and Logout buttons becomes inaccessible. You either have to quickly click any of the side menu buttons before the features pop-up dashboard loads, or you need to complete any action and join a chatroom to access the side menu.

Majority of Chatstep Users come from the United States, India, United Kingdom, and Germany. Users that come from India are active in creating chatrooms in any of the 3 available categories. This is evident because of the flag tags seen on the list of available public chatrooms you can join. With the category listed and specific topic of interest of each group made aware right before anyone can enter the chat, users are able to join rooms that are within their liking. Also, because of this, most online users who are inside the chatroom comply with the room’s guidelines and terms of use defined and set out by the chat room moderator.

Inside a chatroom, you are able to see all registered usernames who have joined the chatroom and decided not to leave room from the left sidebar. A circle beside each username indicates if the user is active or offline—green means online, hollow means inactive. But even if you see a couple of online users on the sidebar, not all are actively chatting. Some seem to be just looking around, while some leave the group right after a few minutes of joining. The ability to easily join and leave a chatroom proves to beneficial especially if you decide that you don’t like what’s going on inside the chatroom.

Apprehensive to sign up an account and give away my email address, I used Chatstep as an anonymous user. I put in my nominated username and out of curiosity, joined a public chat with the name “AuctionRoom”. After clicking the ‘join’ button, I was immediately made aware of what the room was about. Apparently, it was an auction (or more like a chance game), in which users can bid (more like guess) a number. The person who gets the correct number wins a private chat with a woman who willingly puts herself up for auction. Joining the room, the users immediately noticed my username as it was rather girly. They asked if I wanted to be auctioned. I didn’t reply because I got scared. I left the room by closing the tab—being an anonymous user doesn’t have any strings attached, thank God!

With that experience, I still commend Chatstep for putting disclaimer and easily accessible security features throughout the website. I didn’t jump in the chatroom blindly—I knew what the other users do inside the room. Also, if ever I was offended or abused, I could easily block the user and report the chatroom. That would put the room under review.

Having used a couple of free chat platforms, I could say that Chatstep is one of the few that I can feel safe and secured with. Well, that is if I could find a chatroom that matches my interest.

Similar with other free chat platforms, Chatstep also has its share of abusive users and news controversies. Back when Chatstep’s security was not as strict as how it is today, Chatstep was used as a means to acquire and spread pornographic images of children. Such cases were sent to court, and guilty users were convicted. This led to Chatstep updating its security features and terms of usage. Today, all chats are heavily monitored by Chatstep staff and they permanently ban users who do not follow their rules and regulations.