What Is twitch.tv, and Is It Safe?

Last Updated on October 29, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake

Twitch (twitch.tv) is a streaming and online TV site. Twitch hosts many gamers who live stream the games they play while others watch. Many gamers tune in to the live streams to watch gamers play games they don’t yet have or because they are interested in the games being played. Twitch was founded by Emmett Shear, Justin Kan, Michael Seibel, Kyle Vogt, and Kevin Lin. In 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch and remains the parent company in 2023.

ALTERNATIVES

Similar sites to twitch.tv include steamcommunity.com, nexusmods.com, epicgames.com, tracker.gg, twitter.com, op.gg, wowhead.com, own3d.tv, liquipedia.net, and hltv.org.

DESCRIPTION

The twitch.tv homepage was very busy. The question is is it too busy? In some ways, yes. I didn’t get some of the sections it was divided into because they had strange names such as Hype Trains Happening Right Now. I assume “hype train” to be a phrase because I couldn’t see any games under that title. I have noticed in recent years some owners who control editors like to use phrases that younger generations will understand and appreciate as a means of trying to attract and keep their attention. I don’t recommend using phrases in writing in general because they’re bad writing. If you want to appeal to people, it should be done using proper language rather than phrases people who are not English experts have made up. I soon learned that the twitch.tv homepage was on an infinite scroll which officially would be too busy for me. One idea I have instead of an infinite scroll is to allow more scrolling sideways if people wish to continue checking more content within a section rather than increasing the number of sections. If you can highlight the very best gaming rooms on the homepage, it would result in a higher click-through rate than simply showcasing every gamer’s room imaginable. When you allow too much scrolling, you risk users not seeing anything on the page including the best stuff that they probably would have loved. Unlimited freedom for users isn’t a good thing in my opinion. Users need to be guided at all times.

HISTORY

As of September 2023, twitch.tv has 992.6 million monthly views, according to Similar Web. The Wayback Machine estimates twitch.tv was founded for the first time on July 5, 2002. Wayback Machine data shows twitch.tv wasn’t saved very often until 2011 when it started getting saved frequently. Wikipedia says twitch.tv was founded in 2011 which suggests the domain likely changed owners between 2002 and 2011.

Is twitch.tv Safe?

Here, I analyzed twitch.tv for malware and malicious content to check if it was legit or a scam:

Sucuri says twitch.tv has no issues.

Security hardening flaws:

• Missing security header to prevent Content Type sniffing. Affected pages:
  https://m.twitch.tv/?desktop-redirect=true for iPad’s UA
• Missing Strict-Transport-Security security header. Affected pages:
  https://m.twitch.tv/?desktop-redirect=true for iPad’s UA

Unmask Parasites says twitch.tv is clean.

VirusTotal says twitch.tv is clean.

URLVoid says twitch.tv passed all blocklist engines.

In conclusion, twitch.tv was close to getting graded as very safe, but for security hardening flaws on two affected pages. OVERALL GRADE: Safe.

Links and Profiles

Website: twitch.tv