Questions & answers

Bop-On lets you make video and audio calls in your web browser. You can also chat, send files and share your screen. There is no account, no app and no tracking.

No. There is no sign-up, no email address and no password. Bop-On runs in any recent browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari) on a computer, tablet or phone.

If you want to keep contacts between calls, you can choose Remember this device. That saves a profile on the Bop-On server — still with no email address and no password — and you can delete it whenever you like. Everything else works without it.

1. On the start page, tap Create New Room, then Start call.
2. Tap Invite to copy the room link, and send it to the people you want to talk to.
3. They open the link and tap Join now. That's it.

Your browser will ask if Bop-On may use your camera and microphone. You can turn either of them off at any time.

There is no fixed limit, but video calls work best with up to 4–5 people. Everyone sends their video directly to everyone else, so each extra person adds work for every device and internet connection. With cameras off, more people usually work fine.

As long as people are in it. When the last person leaves, or at the latest after 24 hours, the room closes and the server forgets it. If someone opens the same link later, they simply start a new, empty room.

You can use Bop-On without a saved profile. Then nothing about you is kept: no internet addresses, no names, no room links, no call history. When the call ends, nothing about it is left on the server.

If you choose to remember this device, Bop-On stores your profile and the contacts you explicitly add. If you enable notifications, it also stores this browser or app's notification subscription. We do not record your calls or save your chat, files or shared tiles — with or without a profile.

Saved contacts tell the people who run Bop-On that the two of you know each other. The address book is encrypted on disk, but that does not make it anonymous or end-to-end encrypted. Only save contacts you are comfortable having on a server.

• a random internal ID, and the name you chose for contacts
• one sign-in key per browser or installed app you connected, stored as a hash
• the contacts you both agreed to save, with your private labels
• anyone you blocked, and your invitation settings
• if you turned notifications on, this browser's notification address, encrypted

Waiting contact requests and calls live only in the server's memory for minutes and disappear when it restarts. Nothing records which rooms you were in, who you called or how long you talked.

A profile nobody has used for a year is deleted, and a sign-in nobody has used for 180 days expires. Encrypted backups are kept for at most seven days, so a deletion can take that long to disappear from them.

• Remove contact deletes the contact for both of you and cancels any waiting invitation. Adding each other again needs a new request from both sides.
• Block removes the contact and stops further requests and calls from that profile. It cannot stop someone joining a room you shared a link to, or making another anonymous profile.
• Forget this saved sign-in returns this browser or app to anonymous use. Your profile and other sign-ins stay.
• Delete saved profile removes everything: the profile, every sign-in, all notification subscriptions, both sides of every contact, your blocks and any waiting request or call. You can do this from the start page, without being in a call.

A call that is already connected keeps running until someone leaves, and notifications your phone already showed cannot be taken back.

Anyone who has the link. Each link contains a long random code, so nobody can guess it. Only share it with people you want in the call. There is no password, so if the link ends up with the wrong person, create a new room and share the new link instead.

Only the people in your room. Not Bop-On, not anyone else. Video, audio, chat messages, files and the shared tiles — whiteboard, polls and timer — go directly from your device to theirs. This is called peer-to-peer. Everything is encrypted on the way, using the same security standard as all browser calls (WebRTC). The Bop-On server never receives any of it.

It only helps your devices find each other at the start. While a room is open, the server knows:

• that the room exists, and when it was created
• a random ID for each person in it (a new one every time you join)
• the name you entered, if you entered one
• who is the host, who is muted, and who is sharing their screen

It holds this only while the room is open, never writes it down, and forgets it when the room closes. Your internet address (IP address) is needed to connect you, but it is never logged.

No. Chat messages are only shown during the call. When you leave or reload the page, they are gone, also on your device. People who join later don't see older messages.

Files are never uploaded. They are sent straight from the sender's device when someone opens them, so a file is only available while the person who shared it is still in the call. If you want to keep a file, save it to your device.

The whiteboard is kept only by the people in the call. It stays while anyone who has it remains, even if the host leaves, and is gone once everyone has left. Use Export to keep a picture of it.

Polls and the timer live the same way, only in the browsers of the people in the call. A vote travels straight from the person who cast it, so everyone in the call can see who chose what: a poll here is not a secret ballot.

Of course, anyone in the call can still take a screenshot or keep what you send them.

Anyone with the room link can see, before joining, how many people are in the room and the names they entered. Entering a name is optional, and a nickname is fine.

Because your devices connect directly, the other people in the call can technically see your internet address (IP address). This is how all direct calls work.

No ads, no analytics, no tracking — ever. Bop-On sets exactly one cookie, and only if you choose Remember this device: a sign-in key for your saved profile. It is not shared with anyone and is not used to follow you. Without a profile, Bop-On sets no cookie at all.

To save you some typing, your browser remembers a few settings on your device only: your name, your camera and microphone choice, and your quality settings. Clearing your browser's data for this site removes them — and, if you saved a profile, can lock you out of it, because there is no email address to recover it with.

To find a direct path between devices, your browser asks a public helper server (a STUN server, run by Google) what your internet address looks like from the outside. That server never sees your call.

The first person in a room is the host. The host can mute others and remove people from the call, but can only ask someone to unmute. If the host leaves, the person who has been there the longest becomes the new host.

Someone who was removed can come back with the same link. If that happens, create a new room and share the new link only with the people you want.

Yes, in browsers on a computer: click Share Screen in the controls at the bottom. One person can share at a time. Most phone browsers don't support screen sharing.

Video uses a lot of data. During a call, a small counter at the top shows about how much you have used; tap it for details. To use less, turn on Data saver before joining, or later under More options › Quality & data. Turning your camera off saves the most.

In a call, open someone's menu and choose Add contact. They get a private request, and nothing is saved unless they agree. Nobody else in the call learns about it.

After that, Contacts on the start page has a Call button. That starts a private room only the two of you can enter — a room link on its own gets nobody in — and invites them. They have a minute to answer. Your camera and microphone only start once they press Accept call.

If you are already in a call, Call invites your contact into that room instead of leaving it. If you are the host, your invitation counts as letting them in: they join without the password and without waiting in Admit, because you already decided. If someone else in the room invites them, their guest is asked for the password or waits for the host, like anyone else with the link.

A locked room lets nobody in, not even an invited contact — unlock it first. And if you change the password, turn on Admit or lock the room after inviting someone, the invitation stops counting as approval and they meet the new rule instead.

An arriving call plays a short sound while Bop-On is open. Your browser may keep it silent until you have used the page, so the panel on screen is what you should rely on. You can turn the sound off in Your saved profile.

If you install Bop-On and turn notifications on, your phone can show a notification when a contact calls. Tapping it opens the invitation; the call only starts when you accept.

Notifications travel through your browser maker's notification service, which sees that a message arrived even though it cannot read it. They can be delayed, and your phone's settings or a focus mode can hold them back, so this is not a replacement for a phone call. By default a notification says only that a call is waiting; showing who is calling is a separate setting.

On iPhone and iPad, add Bop-On to your Home Screen first, open it from there, then turn notifications on inside the installed app.

• Check that your browser is allowed to use your camera and microphone. There is usually an icon for this in the address bar.
• Try Reconnect under More options, or reload the page.
• Some networks, for example at work, at school or on public Wi-Fi, block direct connections between devices. Try a different network, such as mobile data.
• Make sure your browser is up to date.