1Starting your first chat
There is no sign-up step to get through. Open Thundr in any browser, press start, allow the camera prompt when it appears, and the matching begins. The first stranger usually lands within a few seconds.
You do not create a profile, pick a username, or confirm an email before your first chat. That is deliberate — the whole point of the format is that you are talking before you would normally have finished filling in a form.
There is nothing to download. Thundr runs in the browser on iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac. If you want it to behave like an app, most phone browsers can add the page to your home screen — same site, its own icon.
2Camera, microphone and permissions
A video chat needs camera access, so your browser will ask for it once. If you dismissed that prompt by accident, the fix is in the browser rather than on this site:
- Chrome / Edge (desktop) — click the small icon at the left of the address bar, set Camera and Microphone to Allow, then reload.
- Safari (iPhone / iPad) — Settings › Safari › Camera and Microphone, set to Ask or Allow, then reopen the tab.
- Android Chrome — tap the lock or tune icon beside the address, open Permissions, allow Camera and Microphone.
If another program already holds the camera — a video-call app left running in the background is the usual culprit — the browser will fail to acquire it. Close that program first, then reload.
You are not locked into video. Thundr also supports voice and text chats, so if you would rather not be on camera at all, choose one of those modes instead.
3How matching and Next actually work
Matching is random. There is no interest picker, no topic selector, and no filter by gender or country — you press start and you get whoever the queue puts in front of you. We would rather say that plainly than imply a targeting feature that does not exist.
Next ends the current chat and finds another person. One tap, no explanation owed, no penalty. Either side can use it at any moment, which means a chat can also end because the other person moved on — that is normal and is not a fault or a block.
Because it is random, some sessions take a few seconds longer to connect than others. There is no queue position to watch and nothing to do but wait a moment or tap start again.
4What is free, and what uses coins
Free to start, not free forever. Opening the site, allowing your camera and meeting strangers costs nothing up front. Some longer sessions and premium features use coins, and anything paid is labeled before you use it.
That is the honest version, and it is worth being precise about the part people find annoying: "free to start" is not the same as unlimited. If you use Thundr heavily, you will eventually meet a point where continuing costs coins. You will see that before it happens, not after.
You will never be charged for something you did not tap. There is no subscription that begins quietly in the background, and there is no charge attached simply to opening the site.
5Skipping, blocking and reporting
Three different tools, often confused:
- Next — ends this chat, finds someone new. Use it for "not for me". It is not a complaint and the other person is not told anything.
- Block — ends the chat and stops that account from reaching you again. Use it when someone made you uncomfortable but you do not need us to act.
- Report — ends the chat and sends it to moderation. Use it for anything that broke the rules: nudity you did not consent to see, harassment, anyone who appears to be a minor, anything illegal.
Moderation runs 24/7. Reports are reviewed by people, not only by automation, and accounts that break the rules get restricted or removed.
Thundr is 18+ only. If you believe you matched with a minor, report it rather than skipping — skipping tells us nothing, and that report is the only thing that reaches a reviewer.
6Your privacy when there is no account
Starting without registration means there is no profile of you to browse, and nobody you match with sees an email address, a phone number or a real name — because you never gave one.
What that does not mean is that a chat is invisible. Anything you say or show on camera is seen by the person on the other side, and anyone on any video platform can run a screen recorder. Treat a stranger's camera the way you would treat a stranger's phone in a bar.
What we collect and why is set out in full on the Privacy Policy page; this page is only the plain-English summary.
7When something will not work
- Black screen where the other person should be — usually their camera, not yours. Tap Next; if every match is black, check your own connection.
- You can see them, they cannot see you — your camera permission was denied or another app is holding it. See section 2.
- Sound one way only — check the microphone permission and your device's mute switch before assuming it is the other person.
- Matching never connects — a strict corporate or school network can block the media connection entirely. Try mobile data.
- The page looks broken after an update — a hard reload usually clears a stale cached version.
8Still stuck?
Email [email protected]. Tell us the device and browser you were on and roughly when it happened — that is usually enough to work out what went wrong.
For urgent safety matters, use the in-chat Report button rather than email. A report carries the session with it; an email does not, which makes it much slower to act on.
We will never email you asking for a password or a payment detail. [email protected] is the only support address we use. Anything else claiming to be Thundr is not.