Houseparty App Lets You Throw An Online Party Amid CO.VID-19 Lockdown, Safe And Fun

Houseparty is the next app that sees a sudden spike in popularity when a large number of people are forced to stay indoors to break up the infection chain of COVID-19.

With millions of people stuck at home desperate for human interaction, Houseparty seems to fit in the gap with its casual approach to video calling.

What Is Houseparty app?

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, chances are you have at least once heard of the app or even receive an invitation from a friend recommending you to download it.

What the app does is to create a party-like vibe in the usual video calls between people. That is it and the app is now catching on like wildfire.

Unlike Teams or Zoom when you need an invitation to join a group chat, on Houseparty, people do not need to be invited to participate in anything. The app aims at taking all the essences of a usual hour party online.

You see your friends in different rooms and can get in if you want. Users can also see who is conversing with whom and even play games with each other.

The app is owned by Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite.

You do not need a link or an invitation to start a get-together event on the app. Whenever you are online, it will notify your friends of your presence. When you get a notification, you get to choose to open the app and sneak in, send your friends a note or even snooze the notification. Users can also see who is in a room and join them whenever they want.

Even if you only know one or two people at a party, you can still join it.

However, as letting anyone in without permission seems like relaxation in privacy, the app has a function to let users lock a room to prevent anyone without an invitation to enter.

Another reason for Houseparty’s instance popularity is that it offers you some little games to play while on the group chat.

How to Set Up Your Account On Houseparty

Here is how you can set up an account on Houseparty:

• Download and install the app on your phone. Fill in your name and email address.
• Choose a username and a password for the account. You also need to provide your birthday.
• Next, provide your phone number as Houseparty will send an OTP to your phone to verify your account for Houseparty login.
• Now you will need to create a circle of friends by connecting the app with Snapchat, Facebook, or your device contacts.
• Once the app finishing setting up a circle, you are now ready to throw a party online.

Is Houseparty Safe?

When an app becomes popular, there will always be concern over how safe it is to use it.

Lukas Stefano, a privacy and cybersecurity researcher, has taken a look at the Houseparty app for Android. His answer is that he had not yet found anything suspicious in permissions the app prompts to access users’ information and contacts.

It is true that the app collects your information and those of your friends on Facebook, Snapchat, or your device contact. It also uses what it gathers to target ads. However, the company behind Houseparty promised that it would not share the information with any third party organization.

If you want to withdraw your permission given to the app to use your information, shoot an email to hello@houseparty.com to do so.

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