Anonymous chat in Australia — free, voice or text

Australia is ahead of almost everyone, which shapes HearMe from there in a specific way: an Australian evening is a Southeast Asian evening, an Indian afternoon, a European morning and an American middle of the night. The 1:1 queue is worldwide, and the live count at the top of the page says how many people are on. Text or voice, no camera, no sign-up, on the phone or the laptop.

The table shows the rest of the world at 9pm AEST: the Philippines is at 7pm, Jakarta at 6pm, India at 4:30pm, the UK at 11am and Germany at noon. North America is at dawn and Brazil at breakfast. Perth is two hours behind Sydney. An Australian morning is the European late night and the American afternoon. How many people are on HearMe at any of those hours is the live count at the top of the page.

Times are standard time; daylight saving shifts some of these by an hour for part of the year. 'Evening' is 6pm to midnight. This table is only about clocks: how many people are on HearMe right now is the live count at the top of the page, and we print no other number.

English, with the accent the rest of the world recognises immediately on a voice call. Australia also speaks Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese, Punjabi and Greek, and the site's interface is available in Arabic, Hindi, Filipino and Indonesian.

An Australian evening is the Southeast and South Asian evening by the clock, which is when someone in Manila, Jakarta or Mumbai practising English is most likely to be awake; whether anyone is on is the live count at the top of the page.

Nobody can tell you what a stranger will say, but the interest tags people pick and the topics that recur in the General room give a fair idea. If you want a conversation on one of these, set the tag before you start; the matcher prefers someone who picked the same.

• Footy, in whichever code your state means by it, and cricket in summer.
• Rent and the housing argument, in every capital city.
• Uni, HECS, and the working holiday you did or are planning.
• The Australian abroad: where you have been, where you are going, whether you are coming back.
• The sheer distance from everything, and what it is like over there.
• Late nights on the East Coast and early mornings in Perth. Late-night chat has more.

Australian mobile data is decent in the cities and thin in the regions. Voice is audio-only and uses a fraction of a video call's data, so it holds up on a 4G connection in a country town where a video call would not. When two networks cannot connect directly, a relay server passes the audio through without storing it. Text is nearly free and works everywhere. Nothing is installed; the site runs in Safari and Chrome and can be added to the home screen.

From Australia the country filter is mostly about time. In your evening, the Philippines, Indonesia and India are awake. In your morning, the UK and Germany are ending their day and the US is in its afternoon. Set the country filter for one place, or take the worldwide queue; the live count at the top of the page says how many people are on.

HearMe is 18+ and enforces it. Guests give no name, email or phone number; the flag comes from the connection and shows the country only, never the state. Text is held for 24 hours so a report can be reviewed, then deleted; voice is never recorded and every 1:1 call is private; only a report sends a short clip from just before it for review. There is no camera on the site. A block stops you being matched with that person again; bans hold by account, device and network.