Zoom Web

The Zoom Web App is Zoom's browser client, and the documentation Zoom publishes for it makes the claim plainly: it "brings the full Zoom Workplace experience to your browser, no downloads or plugins required." That is the whole case for using it instead of the desktop app, and the same article quietly undercuts it twice — it recommends downloading the desktop app for "the best audio and video experience", and it never enumerates what is missing, pointing instead at a separate article about "meeting features available in the Zoom Web App". What it does give is the shortest path into a meeting that Zoom offers.

You open app.zoom.us/wc/, where a first-time visitor chooses to sign in, join, or sign up. Joining needs no account: "Join a meeting" works without signing in, given the meeting ID and passcode, while signing up instead creates "a free Basic account". Once inside, the controls sit in a toolbar at the bottom of the window, and there is a test meeting link to practise on. The article does not list supported browsers or devices, linking out to a separate system requirements page; the one device note it carries is that Chromebook users can also install the Web App from the Google Play Store.

Nothing in the article prices the browser app, because it is not sold as a separate product: joining costs nothing and needs no account, while hosting, scheduling and chat need an account rather than a payment. The limits that matter here are administrative rather than commercial — some products "such as Zoom Phone or Zoom Contact Center" carry licence requirements, and an organisation can force sign-in to a company account through what the article calls "network header controls". So the free tier is real but not yours to decide: a work account can take away features that a personal one would leave in place.

The most useful thing in this article is a warning to administrators, and it is worth reading as a user: for the Chat tab to work in a browser, an administrator has to disable "Advanced chat encryption", and the file-sharing setting must be either switched off or set to "Anyone". That is the browser client trading a security control for a feature, and the documentation states it plainly rather than burying it. The article also warns that "Zoom does not recommend blocking the Zoom Web App, as doing so will break product functionality", and that if blocking is unavoidable it should cover only the meeting and webinar paths rather than the home page. On a related point, some accounts still carry an older administrator control that blocks joining a meeting from a browser; Zoom says it is being changed to stop blocking the home page, that it will "continue to block joining meetings in the browser", and that it is slated for removal in early 2027. What the article does not describe is moderation, because there is none to describe: you are joining a meeting someone invited you to, not meeting strangers.

People who cannot install software — on a locked-down work laptop, a borrowed machine or a Chromebook — and anyone who would rather click a link than install an app. By Zoom's own advice it is the wrong choice for regular use, and it is not a way to meet strangers at all.

This is a different kind of source from the other three reviewed here — vendor documentation rather than a store listing — and it reads like one: instead of selling the browser client, it documents its limits for the administrators who have to support it. The encryption trade-off on the Chat tab is the sort of detail a marketing page would leave out, and the repeated advice to install the desktop app for the best experience tells you what Zoom thinks the browser version is for. Take it as a way in when you cannot install anything, not as a replacement for the app.