A current browser
Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox, kept reasonably up to date. Live video relies on browser features that older versions either lack or implement badly.
Online access
Omegle online — a browser tab, and that is it.
No installer, no store, no account on someone else's platform. What you do need is a current browser, camera permission and a connection that can carry two-way video — and if one of those is missing, the fix is usually thirty seconds long.
- Nothing to install
- Phone and desktop
- Permission stays in your browser
What you need.
Four things. Everything else is already handled by the browser.
Camera and microphone permission
Granted through the browser, not through us. If you dismissed the prompt once, the browser remembers — you re-enable it from the padlock in the address bar.
A connection that can carry video
Two-way live video is the heaviest thing here. Wi-Fi is noticeably steadier than a weak mobile signal, and a VPN adds latency on top.
A phone or a computer
Both work. The phone layout keeps the conversation full-screen; the desktop layout shows the same two panes rather than expanding into a lobby.
Troubleshooting
Five things that usually go wrong.
Each of these has a specific cause. None of them is fixed by refreshing and hoping.
- The camera prompt never appears
- The browser is remembering an earlier "block". Open the padlock or the (i) icon next to the address, find camera and microphone, set them back to Ask or Allow, then reload the page.
- Your camera works elsewhere but not here
- Another program usually has it: a video-call app left running in the background holds the camera open, and a second page cannot take it. Close the other app or the other tab first.
- The picture is blocky or keeps stalling
- Usually bandwidth: live video lowers the picture before it drops a call, so a blocky image is the early warning. Move closer to the router, drop off a VPN, or close other downloads. If it persists on a connection you know is fast, it can also be the device struggling to encode video, or a relay in between — worth reporting rather than retrying.
- It will not start on a work or school network
- Managed networks commonly block the real-time media traffic live video depends on, and that block sits on the network rather than on the site, so there is no setting here that changes it. A different network is usually what works; if your network allows it, an administrator can also open the relevant traffic.
- The page loads but nothing happens on iOS
- Two things to rule out before anything else: check that Safari itself has camera permission in iOS Settings, and try a normal tab rather than a private one — private windows have been reported to hold back camera access for some sites, though behaviour varies by iOS version. If neither helps, it is worth reporting with your iOS and Safari version.
One note on privacy
Permission lives in your browser, not on our account.
The camera prompt you accept is a browser setting for this site. You can withdraw it from the padlock in the address bar at any moment, and the site has no way to override that or to turn the camera back on afterwards. That is a property of how browsers work, not a promise we are making.
Common questions
Yes. It runs entirely in a browser tab on both phones and computers, so there is nothing to install and nothing to update. The camera is reached through the browser, which is why you see the standard permission prompt.
Keep reading
Once it is running, here is what actually happens.
You already have everything you need open.
It is the tab you are reading this in.