Help Accessing The Site
To play the games simply visit our homepage at www.friv.com ...you can use just about any device with an up-to-date browser.
Users experiencing trouble accessing the friv.com domain (perhaps because access is restricted by an internet service provider or proxy) might try visiting www.friv4school.com instead.
Should you experience any issues playing the games, first check that you are using an up-to-date browser such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Some older devices (such as earlier iPhones and iPads) aren't able to run the latest browsers that can display the newer WebP image format, and users of these devices may find some game pictures missing, and that some games don't work.
Friv will run best on newer computers and mobile devices, especially those with widescreen, high resolution displays. Because there is such a variety of computers and devices out there, users may notice significant differences in content and experience on Friv depending on how they access the site. You can at any time access the full games list of all of our games, but please be aware that some may not function properly on your machine.
About Friv
Since 2006 the Friv website has offered lots of great online games for users to play for free. Friv is different from many other games sites. We only provide family friendly games that are fun and of a high quality. We show VERY few ads. In fact, we’ll NEVER interrupt your game with an advert - that would be rude. :) We’ll never nag you to pay for anything. Users who would prefer not to see even a single advert may visit our dedicated schools website at www.friv4school.com.
We’re delighted that over the years the Friv brand has become trusted by children, parents, teachers and schools worldwide. Users of any age and in any country can be sure that they will only ever find wholesome content on the site, and that’s a big reason why we’ve grown and become popular. We’re eternally grateful for the support we’ve been given, and we endeavour never to break the trust our valued users have shown in us. In short, we love you all!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why has my favourite game disappeared?
Sometimes a game will have to be removed because it stops working. This can happen when the technology used to run a game changes, but the game itself stays the same. We try really hard to keep as many of the games working as we can. Other times, to make room for new games, we have to remove older ones if we find that they are less popular. It's often possible to find these games on other sites, so just search a bit and you'll likely succeed.
What age is Friv appropriate for?
Friv is a general audience website, which means it's not directed at any particular group or age range. While there are no games that are strongly violent or whose themes are suitable only for adults, some games may not be suitable for younger children, and we suggest that these users are observed by a responsible adult while using the site. We do operate a games website which is directed specifically at minors, and that is www.friv4school.com.
What happened to the old Friv?
Most of the early web games ran really well on a technology called Adobe Flash. There was a problem when smartphones and tablets started to appear from around 2007 onwards, as these devices could not run Flash well, or at all. Sadly, for this and other reasons, Flash was more or less fully disabled worldwide at the end of 2020. As both the original Friv menu and all the games ran on Flash, these no longer ran in most browsers. We worked hard to make a new menu that would work well on all devices, and to source new games made with the up to date HTML5 technology. Happily, lately it has also been possible to emulate some of the older Flash games, and if you look carefully, you will find some on the new Friv menu. You can also have look at our reborn Flash menu at www.frivclassic.com. By no means do all the old games run, but rest assured we're always working on it!
How did Friv start?
We identified a need! While volunteering in schools, we saw that the kids were having real trouble on the computers finding games to play without being constantly tricked by bogus links to non-existent games, or bothered by endless and sometimes unsafe ads. We knew we could do better. In November 2006 we launched the first version of Friv in beta, and saw it grow really well the following year just by word of mouth - among both kids and adults. The rest, as they say, is history.
Why are there so many fake Friv sites out there?
Like many others in the games industry, we have developed a reputation for providing quality, safe games under a unique name users can trust. As so often happens in commerce, bad actors have exploited this trust and have established fake sites which they monetize via adverts. The fake sites and the ad networks can make large profits from tricking users this way, hence the number of bogus sites.
Can I make videos of Friv games?
Yes! We love to see fans recording their gameplay on Friv. If you upload a video to social media, please make sure that your channel's name and identity is your own, and that you provide a link to the game so that others can easily play it too. For free open-source software to record your gameplay, simply search for Open Broadcaster Software 'OBS'.
Friv Fakes & Forgeries
We made up the nice and short word ‘Friv’ 20 years ago, and we straight away registered the friv.com domain name so that it could become a new place for online games. In the early days of the web, anyone, rich or poor, could choose more or less any name they wanted so long as it was a 'made up' word such as Google, Etsy, Habbo, Reddit, Netflix, Spotify and Youtube. Such words, even in the ‘.com’ namespace were typically freely available and could be registered, as we did with Friv, for only a few dollars. We were hopeful and excited that Friv would be an easy word for users to remember and type whenever they wanted to play great online games. When we first got some games up and running in late 2006 we were delighted because we could see that users seemed to like what we were doing and the site grew well. We imagined that users would simply type ‘friv.com’ into their browser address bar and visit our site that way. Instead, we found that a lot of users went through a gatekeeper / middle man, and typed ‘friv’ or ‘friv games’ into a search engine and visited us from there. This has been a problem (for us, and many other businesses) as the genuine site doesn’t always appear at the top of the search results, with many bogus sites appearing within the list. This can be very confusing for users.
There are many good and trusted brands in the world. Unfortunately, some brands like Nike, Gucci and Chanel are very widely ripped off by those who wish to profit from the reputation they have worked hard to build. Like ourselves, nearly all the big brands have registered their names as trademarks in many different countries around the world - that's why you often see the Registered Trademark ® symbol which shows that a brand is legally recognised as special and unique. However, with so many fakes out there it can be confusing. A customer who buys shoes from a Nike store, or a can of co*ke from a supermarket can be pretty sure they’re getting the real thing. It’s not so easy on the web.
Online, the practical legal protection for a mark is limited, and sadly there are a lot of bad actors who have set up counterfeit Friv games websites and apps. These offer poor quality and sometimes unsafe games featuring countless dodgy ads in an attempt to profit from our hard work and investment. These sites achieve success by appearing in search listings and by tricking genuine users into visiting them. The number of trademark-infringing ‘friv’ domain names registered now runs into many hundreds or more likely thousands, and in practical terms it is simply impossible to keep track of them all. If other webmasters wish to set up games sites, we support them 100%, but they should come up with their own names, not deliberately confuse gamers by using ours. So, while we and our lawyers work to catch, stop, and prosecute the bad guys (over the years we have closed down or stopped ads from running on dozens of fake sites and apps) you can educate and amuse yourself by looking at some of the more blatant rip-offs in our rogues gallery...
FRIVFAKES
All of the above sites were quickly found by typing "Friv" and "Old Friv" into Google Search. Come on Google! Please - let's all work hard to keep users safe with genuine sites.
Ye Olde Friv
Below is a screenshot of our original, some might even say ‘iconic’ Flash menu. We know that a lot of people remain very nostalgic about the old Friv design (2006 - 2020) and cherish their youthful memories of spending time on the site. Back then, all the games and even the menu system itself were coded in Flash. The powers that be (very much against our wishes) decided to disable Flash at the end of 2020, and so all those wonderful games and even our beloved menu system were effectively lost. The good news is that work is being done to emulate Flash, so that the many little gems we still love can once again run in the browser. We're doing all we can to get as many working as soon as possible. As for our old menu design; even if we did rework it to run in modern browsers there would be problems. These days, having all the game icons on the screen at once would simply make them too small to be selected by fat fingers on small phones and tablets. We hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive us for making such drastic changes, and will in time come round to loving - or at least liking - our new menu system. However, here at Friv we're passionate about history and nostalgia and so a revival of sorts is underway. We maintain a passion for and copyright in our classic design work, and if you take a quick look at www.frivclassic.com ...you might just find a few old gaming memories coming back!
Copyright © 2006-onwards. All rights reserved. Friv is a Registered Trademark.
