Chat app or browser tab: what each one actually costs you
Nearly every random chat product ships as a mobile app, and most people install one without thinking about it, because installing things is what phones are for. It is worth thinking about it once, because the two options differ in ways that have nothing to do with features.
What an app is actually asking for
An install needs a store account, storage that stays used after you lose interest, and a set of permissions that remain granted until you go back and revoke them — which nobody does. It also puts an icon in your app list, where anyone who picks up your phone can read the name.
None of that is sinister. It is the deal every app makes, and for something you use daily it is a fine deal. For a thing you are trying once out of curiosity, you are signing a lease on a hotel room.
What a tab gives up
Being honest in the other direction: browsers are worse at some things. Push notifications are weaker or absent. Background behaviour is limited. On older phones a browser video call can be less efficient than a native one. If you want something to buzz at you when a friend comes online, an app genuinely does that better.
For a product where every conversation is with a stranger you have never met and will not see again, none of those advantages apply. There is nobody to notify you about.
The privacy difference is structural, not a promise
This is the part worth being precise about, because it is easy to over-claim. A web page cannot read your contacts, cannot run when you are not looking at it, and cannot stay on your device after the tab is closed. That is not a policy we wrote. It is what a browser is.
What a tab does not do is make you anonymous. Your connection still exists, the site still works, moderation still sees reports. "Nothing installed" and "nothing recorded anywhere" are different claims and only the first one is ours.
The reasonable rule
Install the things you use every week. Open a tab for the things you are still deciding about. Most random chat falls in the second category for most people, and honestly stays there.
DuoChat is only the second kind. There is no app to graduate to, which means there is also no nagging banner asking you to install one.