Nowadays it feels natural to just log onto an online poker room’s website and to open up the poker client directly in the browser, being able to play fully featured real money games, and enjoying all the features the downloadable client would offer. It wasn’t always like this though. Just a few years ago, no download poker clients were a rarity in the industry. Only a few poker rooms had such clients and even those were seriously subpar in comparison to the downloadable clients those same rooms had.
The idea early on was to offer players who did not use windows operating systems a way to play online. As it was sort of an emergency solution, and because of the limitations of the Java technology used, early no download poker clients were rather rudimentary. Players were stuck with lousy graphics and with next to no extra options concerning the various stages of gameplay.
The factor that really kicked no-dowload poker client developers into high gear was mobile communications technology. With the advances made, it became more and more reasonable to play online through one’s mobile device. As phones developed into mini-computers, the online poker industry saw a great target in the billions of mobile phone users world-wide. The necessity for decent mobile phone based clients became acute. Since the technology used for mobile gaming was pretty much the same as the one used for the no download browser based clients, no dowload gaming had a lot to gain from this setup.
Browser based poker clients have sprung up everywhere, and these days, a poker room which does not offer such a functionality is no longer regarded as a top poker room. The beauty of the browser based poker client is that anybody can get into the action at a moment’s notice, regardless of the operating system he uses. I’m a windows user and I sometimes use the no download software, being plain old lazy to download and to fire up the other one.
As no download clients get ever more sophisticated and as bandwidths grow all the time, it’s just a question of time till downloadable poker clients become a thing of the past.
That however, will raise a few questions. Currently, most of the anti-botting and anti-fraud measures implemented by online poker rooms are pretty much dependant on the downloadable client-side part of the software. They usually come in the shape of various software hooks which detect programs running in the background. Of course, that’s not the only line of defense for online poker rooms. Analyzing betting patterns and statistical outcomes is quite probably the best way to spot fraudulent activity, and that will remain available for online poker service providers forever. Various players’ hand histories can be pulled at a moment’s notice and one doesn’t really have to be genius to spot things that defy the law of averages in it. Will browser based poker clients leave players more exposed to fraud on the part of other players? Not likely.
Whether you play through your downloaded poker client or through your browser, signing up for a rakeback or for a poker prop deal always makes perfect sense. If you don’t know what rakeback is, check out a poker forum. The community there will point you in the right direction. Logging directly on to a rakeback site makes even more sense. Get that rakeback setup going and start earning extra money right now.
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