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Playing chess online
Playing chess online is fun, but the communities are not the same, and you can encounter people from all around the world. For parents worried about their children playing online, or people who are not familiar with it, is playing chess online safe?
For some, the question may seem ridiculous, but it actually needs a coherent response, along with an explanation. However, if you think playing online is dangerous you should definitely calm down.
It’s not like the cyber-criminals are chasing you, but it’s true sometimes it needs some precaution, as long as you follow the rules you will be fine. The risk of getting hijacked on the internet is the same risk you have when you go out to the street.
Particularly, playing chess online safe is one of the healthiest activities you can do online, for several reasons. One of them is that its community is pretty polite, most people are willing to help and there is not destructive behavior.
Simply because chess is a pacific game, that encourages courtesy and good manners, so are hard you encounter someone harmful. Different to other communities of videogames, like Dota 2, or Fornite, which tend to be more extreme.
Why can playing chess online be considered dangerous?
The only thing that makes a videogame community safe or not is the community, who are you interacting with?
It’s impossible to know the person you are playing, and what are capable of doing. But first, let’s define what we mean by “dangerous” or “unsafe”. Unsafe could mean encountering aggressive players who tend to insult and “flame” other players to hurt them.
It’s like a bully at school, the same principles, and in some cases, even adults can fall into that. All of these behaviors are prohibited in online games and go against the rules of playing chess online.
Of course, if you are playing a game you want to relax and enjoy a good game, the purpose is feeling better, not worse. So this is a serious problem in online gaming, but there are solutions you can give to this problem.
Remember we all live in a world with different kinds of people, we can’t control what they say or do, and everyone needs to learn how to deal with that. The people online could be mean, but of course, not all of the people online are bad or is willing to hurt you.
Is playing chess online safe?
Well, the answer is: Yes. Playing chess online is a simple activity anyone can get access to, the highest risk of this is to get insulted, and that’s hard actually. You can be sure to play online, and if your kid is playing online he should have no trouble.
Chess online platforms like chess.com, lichess.org, or chess24 offer nice communities and good tools to assure security. These platforms and companies are the most important to play chess online, they assure all of the data is secure.
The privacy of the website is absolute, and that is something good about playing on the most popular platforms. If the best chess players in the world play on those platforms are because their information is secure, if not, none would be playing chess online safe on those platforms.
Also, there is no way to share files or different documents through those webs, so you can be sure you won’t receive anything inappropriate. Anyways, if you have a kid you will surely not listen to any of this, well, I have the best alternative for your children.
There are special websites dedicated to children, like chesskid.com, which is special for them to play. This is a good way to make sure they are secure; they are simply playing with other kids.
How to play chess online safe?
Many functions offer you real-time security, and of course the rules of the websites. You can’t post explicit content, or insult anyone, or anything that affects the well-being and plays experience of another player.
There is the report function, which allows you to expose the players that go against the rules of the website. This way they will be banned by an admin if they are flaming.
Also, you can silence other players, and put certain users on the blacklist, which is quite useful when you encounter an annoying troll.
However, it is always recommendable to use a different name to your real name, and make sure you don’t put important information. Remember that the platforms are not bad, the people make it worse, so it will depend on what you do on the web.
But, if you don’t feel comfortable you can simply disable comments, and notifications, that you don’t get bothered by anyone. Playing chess online safe can be a funny experience, and actually, a pretty good way to improve in chess fast, let yourself play tournaments safe.
Conclusion
In the end, the risk is little but it exists, so here we will give you some advice on how to play chess online safe, and enjoy your experience. This can be useful for kids, for parents worried about their children’s well-being, or any curious player who want to know:
- Never use real information: Remember that it’s just a game, you don’t need to give any personal information, not about your accounts, or credentials. Most of the sites will ask you to introduce an e-mail for registration, you could create another e-mail to play. Or you can just play as a guest.
- Block all the messages: Assuming you are using one of the biggest chess platforms for playing chess online, you can block and silence the users if you want. You should check out the stings and configure your profile to never receive messages from other players, this way nobody bothers you.
- Use antivirus: A good antivirus is always the best to avoid scams, malware, and other stuff you don’t like. With an antivirus running on your PC you can be sure, it won’t allow any malicious data to go into your computer.
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