A Browser Game Versus an Installed One

The honest trade-offs of playing in a tab rather than downloading something.

A browser game and a downloaded game are genuinely different products. Here is what each does better, without pretending the browser wins on every axis.

What the browser version does better

Time to play. Open a URL, press start. No store, no download, no install, no patcher, no launcher update before you can begin.

Nothing to uninstall. Close the tab. There is no residue.

Every device. The same URL works on a phone, a tablet, a laptop and a desktop, with layouts adapted for each, and there is nothing to buy twice.

No account. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to remember, nothing to be breached.

Size. A few hundred kilobytes against several gigabytes for a comparable downloaded title.

What an installed game does better

Ecosystem. Ranked ladders, global leaderboards, friend lists, matchmaking, tournaments, spectating. A browser game with no accounts has none of that, and those features are genuinely valuable if you want to compete seriously.

Polish budget. Licensed music, hand-drawn art, cutscenes, voice work. A downloaded game can carry hundreds of megabytes of assets. This one generates its audio at runtime because it has to.

Input latency. A native application has a slightly shorter path from keypress to pixel. The difference is small and real.

Consistency. Browsers vary. A downloaded build behaves identically for everyone.

Where they are closer than people assume

Performance. A canvas game running well-optimised code is not meaningfully limited by being in a browser. The drawing work for a full versus board plus several hundred particles measures a couple of milliseconds.

Offline. A cached web app works with no connection, exactly like an installed one.

The honest position

If you want a competitive career in this genre, use the game with the ladder. If you want to play a good version of it right now, on whatever device is in your hand, without agreeing to anything, that is what this is for.

Read next

• Why Play TETERIFree, instant, offline-capable, and it asks nothing of you before you can start. A straight account of what it offers.
• The Four Game ModesMarathon, versus CPU, split-screen and online duels, and what each is actually for.
• Every Control in TETERIThe complete list for keyboard, touch and gamepad, including the ones that are not obvious.
• Playing on a PhoneTwo layouts, two control schemes, and the specific problems that had to be solved to make touch work properly.
• Reading Your Opponent's BoardTheir well depth, their stack height and the shared queue tell you when their attack is coming.
• How the CPU Opponent SearchesEnumerate every placement, score the resulting board on four weighted features, take the best.