Free Chat Rooms and Services
One of the main reasons many people go online is to chat to their friends and family. The Internet has opened up a number of communication channels, the most popular being e-mail (although chat weighs in at a close second). Below, we review the Internet's best free chat services, including free emoticons, online chat rooms and communities. We've also included some services that allow you to add a chat room to your own Web site. Remember: be safe, never disclose your personal details and never arrange to meet strangers. Our Free Chat Software category reviews programs that allow you to chat, message and interact with other Internet users, so be sure to check those out as well. If you happen to stumble across an outdated link, we'd very much appreciate it if you could report it. Thank you!
Freeola Chat
A free chat community that's based around a series of message boards. Freeola Chat is a fun place to talk about games, gossip, films, life and more. By participating in the discussions, visitors have a chance of being singled out to win £30 worth of Argos or Amazon vouchers. If you're feeling creative, you can even start your own forum, and take charge with moderation privileges.
ChattersOnline.com
Create free chat rooms for your Web site and allow visitors to chat with their friends or family in real-time. No special expertise is needed to get started, you simply register with the site and follow simple, step-by-step instructions. ChattersOnline.com also has a vibrant homepage, with up-to-the-minute news, message forums and various other Internet downloads.
Teenfront.co.uk
A well-designed, popular and quality Web site dedicated to teenagers. Teenfront.co.uk features free chat rooms, free MSN emoticons, teen forums, competitions, free electronic greeting cards, movie trailers, game reviews, celebrity gossip and lots more besides. In fact, even if you're not a teenager, you're likely to find something of interest here. They update with new competitions regularly.
Talk City
Talk City believes that the ability to form truly global communities around businesses, ideas, interests, brands, and hobbies will be one of the signature developments of the early 21st century. They offer a large selection of chat rooms from general chat to music and entertainment. Make sure you have read their code of conduct before entering one of the many chat rooms here.
FunkySmileys.co.uk
At FunkySmilies.co.uk, you can locate a wide range of free emoticons (more commonly known as "smileys"). Here, you'll find free emoticon images for messenger programs (e.g. MSN Messenger and AOL IM), chat rooms and e-mails. Their comprehensive directory organises a wide range of smileys into various categories, so you can easily find what you're searching for.
Excite Super Chat
Here is another good set of chat rooms. Excite Chat has a few extras thrown in as well (similar to Yahoo!), such as voice chat, as an alternative to traditional text-based chat. Another excellent feature is their "graphic chat" rooms. Here, you pick a character and use them to represent yourself. Upon registering, you'll benefit from access to all of Excite's services.