Active Audience | 72% |
Quality Matches | 91% |
Popular Age | 20-38 |
Profiles | 2 560 890 |
Reply Rate | 82% |
Ease of Use | 7.5 |
Popularity | 8.8 |
Fraud | Very Rarely |
Rating |
8.9
|
Registration | Free |
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This review is devoted to one of the most popular dating and social networking platforms belonging to the FriendFinder Network. This company owns several other online dating sites like Alt.com and TSDates. Unlike its sister platforms, FriendFinder has a broader and more diverse audience. Since its launch in 1996, the audience has been continuously growing, and currently, it includes over 2 million active members. Half of the website’s member base is premium users who purchase memberships and extend it regularly. The platform has earned its members’ loyalty due to its features and quality services, which will be discussed later in this FriendFinder review.
The website belongs to FriendFinder California Inc. – a company owning several online dating platforms. It is registered in Campbell, CA, USA. Hence, the operation of the website is legitimate.
As mentioned above, the platform has a large and diverse audience. Statistics show that about 800 thousand users come from the United States. The rest are from European countries, Canada, and Australia as well.
The gender proportion of the member base is highly inhomogeneous. The 68% share belongs to males, and 32% belongs to females. However, it’s only a rough estimate which needs double-checking. As you could see, the platform is dominated by men looking for casual encounter partners. If you are interested in serious relationships and marriage, FriendFinder isn’t the place to look for. Once in a thousand cases, it happens that after having fun, someone wants to settle down finally, but those cases are too rare.
FriendFinder is an open-minded platform that respects the sexual orientations of all individuals. While creating an account, all users should mention their sex as well as the gender of the person they’d like to connect with. Overall, four pairs are possible – a man interested in men, a man interested in women, a woman interested in men, and a woman interested in women.
In later stages of registration, you should also fill in the “Sexual Orientation” field. It has a dropdown menu that contains several options: straight, gay/lesbian, bi-sexual, and bi-curious.
Statistics show that the FriendFinder member base is diverse in terms of users’ age as well. The lion’s share of the two-million-user community belongs to the 35-44 age category with 32%. Second place is taken by users in their mid-20s and early 30s (25-34 age group) with 29%. The percentage of users aged between 45 and 54 dramatically decreases to 16%, where the females’ share is only 5%. Next comes the age category of young people aged 18-24 years old with 15%. FriendFinder isn’t much popular among people over 55 years old who make only 8% of the huge member base.
Creating an account on the FriendFinder website takes only five minutes since registrants should only provide personal information. Unlike other online dating platforms, this one doesn’t require filling out lengthy and tiresome personality tests or quizzes.
Overall, you should take the following steps described to sign up. First of all, go to the official website – www.FriendFinder.com and click the orange “Join Now” button. There’s no registration form that would contain all the necessary fields on one page. On the contrary, each page contains several fields. For moving to the next one, you should click the “Next” button below.
Your registration begins with specifying your gender – man/woman, and the gender of the person you are looking for – men/women. Moving ahead, fill in your birthday details, country, state, and city. Next, enter your email address, choose a username, and set a password that contains at least five characters. Though this seems to be the last stage, FriendFinder will ask you to provide a little more information about your race, body type, sexual orientation, and marital status. In the “Introduction Title” field, write a ten-character-long title that describes you best. The next field requires writing a short descriptive paragraph that explains to other users who you are, your likes, dislikes, interests, and so on.
After clicking the “Done” button, FriendFinder will send an email to the address you mentioned during the registration. Open your inbox, find the email, and click “Activate Now” to confirm your email address. This verification step is required for keeping fake accounts away.
Once you have activated your account, it’s time to make it more presentable before contacting anyone. For doing that, find the “My Staff” tab on the navigation bar and choose the “Edit Profile” option. On the right-hand side of the page, you’ll see the percentage of profile completion. Here FriendFinder lists the required information by topics like “Basic Profile,” “Personal Information,” “Add/Manage Photos,” “Personality Type,” “Get ConfirmID,” etc.
You may begin by adding a profile picture as well as one or two additional ones. Studies show that the availability of photos increases the profile’s visibility a few times. Besides pictures, you can also record an introductory video by watching which people will have a better idea of who you are.
As mentioned previously in this FriendFinder review, creating an account is quick since users don’t have to take personality tests or quizzes. Once you have registered, you may consider taking one since that additional data may help the matchmaking algorithm find more compatible matches for you. By the way, every profile has a compatibility chart. You can see your compatibility scores and what you have in common by visiting other users’ profiles.
FriendFinder can boast multiple options for searching for new people and establishing contact with them. The “Search” tab is where all the tools for finding compatible partners are located. By choosing the “Who’s Online” option, you’ll see a random list of people online at the moment. The “New Matches” feature allows seeing all newly registered users.
Among all the features, “Hot or Not” is perhaps users’ favorite since it looks more like a game. Here the system displays photos of different users. Users should give “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Down” to show whether they think the person in the photo is hot or not.
“Advanced Search” is another useful FriendFinder tool for those who know what people they want to meet. Here they can search users by their usernames or apply filters. Setting the age range of potential partners and the distance from you are free filters for all users. Only premium users are allowed to apply criteria like race, sexual orientation, body type, height, eye color, etc.
Once you have found someone interesting by any of the means described above, it’s time to establish contact with them. Unfortunately, FriendFinder messaging is an advanced function, and only premium users have the advantage of initiating a conversation. As a standard user, you have several options for demonstrating your interest. In particular, you can use the flirt function, add as a friend or save in your “Hotlist.” Forums and group chats are other free options for talking with strangers and discussing fun topics together.
The platform is available as a fully functional website, mobile site, and a mobile application. The website can be accessed via PCs and laptops. The full web version is available for mobile devices, but it’s more comfortable to use the mobile site since it’s better-adjusted. And finally, the mobile app is compatible with iOS devices.
FriendFinder doesn’t have a desktop version – software that can be downloaded and installed on your PC. However, it has a web version – a website that can be accessed via any browser. It contains all the functions, features, sections, and tools the platform has. For accessing the web version, just type FriendFinder.com in the URL field.
The FriendFinder Network has developed a mobile application compatible with iOS devices only. The app is unique since it contains the member base of all sites belonging to the Network. It allows being connected all the time and getting notifications once you receive messages. But unfortunately, the FriendFinder app works with glitches since it hasn’t been updated for a long time.
If users cannot use the app because of the bugs, they can access their accounts via the mobile site. Yes, the platform is optimized for mobile devices and can be accessed via any browser.
The design and interface of the web version are outdated, which has its positive and negative sides. Positive, since the site’s simplicity allows loading fast, and negative, because it doesn’t look pleasing to the eyes. While adult users may focus on the functionality, younger ones usually pay attention to the design.
The website doesn’t have fancy color solutions. The navigation bar is highlighted in orange. The background is white, on which black and blue text is well visible. Essential parts are usually highlighted in grey.
Since the FriendFinder website design is straightforward, its navigation is also easy. The navigation bar contains eight tabs – Home, Messages, Notifications, My Stuff, Search, Live Action, Community, and What’s Popular. The first three tabs send users to respective pages. The other tabs contain several options that appear when you click on them. For example, by choosing My Stuff “My Profile,” “Friends,” “My Hotlist,” “Flirted with Me,” and several more options will appear.
The information on user profiles is grouped logically, but unfortunately, profiles don’t look neat. The reason is the abundance of information, buttons, and unnecessary parts. Profiles would look nicer without them.
The FriendFinder dating platform offers two types of services – free and paid. Users who don’t want to pay for accessing advanced features have standard accounts with a limited set of free functions. After registration, all users enter their standard accounts. They can navigate the site for some time but cannot use some paid features like messaging. For using the premium function, they should upgrade their profiles.
There are two types of premium memberships – Silver and Gold. Each of them includes three subscription plans. Here are the prices of the FriendFinder Silver Membership:
Duration | Cost Per Month | Total cost |
---|---|---|
1 Month | 19.99 USD/Month | 19.99 USD |
3 Months | 11.66 USD/Month | 34.99 USD |
6 Months | 10.82 USD/Month | 64.93 USD |
Here are the prices for FriendFinder Gold membership:
Duration | Cost Per Month | Total cost |
---|---|---|
1 Month | 24.99 USD/Month | 24.99 USD |
3 Months | 19.99 USD/Month | 59.96 USD |
6 Months | 15.82 USD/Month | 94.93 USD |
As you already know, the FriendFinder dating platform offers standard and premium memberships. Here are the free services available for standard accounts:
As you can see in the previous paragraph of this FriendFinder review, prices for Silver and Gold memberships are different. The reason is that they unlock a different set of functions. The features available for Silver users are as follows:
Gold users have unlimited access to all functions. Overall, here are the features FriendFinder Gold members can enjoy:
For purchasing any of the memberships listed in this FriendFinder review:
The FriendFinder website accepts payments through Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Maestro, JCB, and SEPA cards. The website stores your credit card details and renews your subscription automatically. If it’s a one-time purchase and you don’t want your plan to be auto-renewed, you can turn off this function in the “Billing History” section of your account.
The site holds an SSL certificate, so you can be sure that any transaction made on the website is safe. Article 7 of the FriendFinder Privacy Policy states that the Network applies specific security procedures to protect users’ data and prevent their loss or misuse. They use firewalls and other industry-standard measures for protection purposes. Overall, their technical team does its best to prevent any data breaches. Anyway, ideal protection is impossible, and there are risks.
As already mentioned, the platform uses an email verification procedure to prevent registrations with fake email addresses. The platform also suggests verifying user profiles with ConfirmID – a third-party program that verifies users’ identities. Once you complete this procedure, you receive a blue “Verified” badge.
Regardless of these procedures, unfortunately, the percentage of fake accounts is high on the platform. Users should always be alert and take precautionary measures by blocking fake accounts or profiles with suspicious behavior.
The website is rich in functions and features. Here are the most remarkable ones:
As shown in this FriendFinder review, the platform has a large pool of loyal customers who regularly purchase and renew their subscriptions. Though the website is most popular in the United States, it also has members from European, South American, and African countries. The website’s design is outdated and seems like it hasn’t been improved since 1996, but some people appreciate its simplicity. So it’s strongly recommended to register on the FriendFinder website and check it by yourself!