Zoosk
Pros: Large global audience. Clean, easy-to-use site. Easy to link up with Facebook. Verified photos and accounts keep catfishing or phony accounts to a minimum.
Cons: Pay-for site that means you can’t see who’s viewed you or communicate with members without paying. A month’s membership is ?22, which is halved per month if you sign up for 6 months.
Fitness Singles
Encourages daters to meet doing the activity they love rather than across a table in a cafe. It’s free to join and post a profile and simple to get started, though messaging costs.
You choose the sports or activities you’re into – a number of primary ones to show on your main profile then the rest – then add a photo if you wish (you should always add a photo, not for superficial reasons, but to let others know you’re genuine) and a few details about yourself.
Don’t be put off thinking you need to be an athlete to join – Fitness Singles is for people of all types who like an active lifestyle, however you will find a lot of profile pictures of people sailing, hiking and running. Our tester found the calibre of people to be high with low risk of dick pics or those just after sex. A very palatable dating site experience. Caters for both mixed and same sex couples.
Cons: Fairly rudimentary site, old fashioned type-face and layout. Lots of photos of people in cycling helmets, and when we joined, too many with no photo at all.
OkCupid
Pros: Free. Has an incognito mode ‘cut out the creeps with incognito mode’ – that allows you to choose who sees your profile, revoke access to your profile and dip in and out of a public account. Has quick Facebook sign-up option, which is invaluable if you’re joining multiples.
Cons: Users have previously reported getting bombarded with many unwanted messages, partly because it’s free, aka a free for all. However, OkCupid responded to such complaints by adding the Incognito Mode, which can quickly put a stop to that.
Sapio – connects people based on personality and what their mind has to offer, rather than looks. Calls itself ‘a dating app with depth’ and claims to make interactions fun rather than ‘aimless’ (or aimed at getting a quick lay). Chat is enabled only when you’ve both liked each other and you can browse people by their answers to life questions and moral issues rather than just by photo.
Tinder – if you’re single (and often if you’re not) you’ll know all about Tinder by now. The best known of the swipe-to-like apps, this revolutionary app transformed dating forever, taking the hunt for a partner out of the bars and into the home – allowing us to surf for a date while on the sofa in our pyjamas. Unlike other apps too, it instantly catered for same sex relationships. More than 50 million people use Tinder every month with over 12 million matches per day from over 1 billion swipes. That’s a lot of people looking for love.
When it started it really was the cool kids’ way to engage with online dating. Now it has gone mega-mainstream, some users think the user experience has suffered from its size. The swipe mechanism that we all loved at the beginning can now seem laborious when there’s no filter – users say they find they now need to swipe through dozens more of photos before they find one they like – and 