Chat Avenue

Chat Avenue is an old well established chat site, it's been around for many years and is close to the top for many chat room keyword searches. When clicking the link and going into the home page, there isn't really anything that catches the eye, it's kept it's aesthetic over the years sticking to a grid format with a selection of free chat rooms to choose from. It seems, off the bat, that this is a chat site for everyone, with a teen and even a kids room. However right under the passage that says that it’s for everyone, there is an ad for free sex cam girls. I am kind of nervous about any sites that have sexually charged chat rooms, and still allow children to chat on their site, most modern popular chat sites do not allow anyone of the age of 18 to chat if it contains sex chat rooms, of which it does, an immediate red flag.

The home page lists the rooms, and there seem to be quite a few to choose from. Anything from 18 plus, to music, video gaming to teen and kids chat is available. I decided to go into the Adults room, and the first thing I noticed when logging in is that it doesn't do anything. Just a blank screen after I put in my chat name. It’s not very user friendly (this I'm sure is down to the fact that it relies on Flash chat for desktop). After messing around with it for a minute, and clicking a selection at the top "use modern version" I am in. Once in, I noticed that it is very busy, but its not really users chatting, but tons of bots and spam instead. There was only one moderator on the users list, and it didn't seem they paid much attention to the content of the chat room, as there seems to be underage and people asking to chat to underage users in the community area of the chat!

Something that I do like is the ability to cam chat and use your microphone, and they also have a music streaming toggle, which is probably my favorite part of the site, which is not saying much. At least I can listen to music as I fight the spam to attempt to engage in conversation. I decided to click on the kids chat next, the content is not what I would want my children exposed to. I am instantly appalled that there is not one human moderator in this highly controversial chat room. There is a mix of kids and adults, spam bots and even users soliciting underage for sex chat on this particular page. As a parent, I would absolutely never let my children close to this site.

The last room I decided to enter was the general chat. This one seems to be the most used by regular chatters, however it is still overrun by spam and bots, which really ruined the experience for me. Again there are no moderators available it seems the spam bots are given the okay by Chat Avenue staff, to make up it's huge numbers. All pages have the Terms of Use posted under their chat windows, and there is an area that has moderators and admin listed, but from what I saw, They are pretty much nonexistent.

So, to recap my experiences, the pros are that it has decent abilities to upload audio, video chat, and photo as well as gif, and you can listen to the radio. Cons, are that it is overrun by bots, has little to no moderation even though it has a kids room, Is not family friendly by any stretch of the imagination, and is not user friendly at all. I would not visit this site again.