Image: POF App
Back in September of 2019 POF received it’s first major facelift since the Match Group purchased the dating service back in 2015. This update kept most of the features the same but mainly was a branding and user interface refreshing.
The next big update happened in March when POF launched their Live Stream feature in partnership with The Meet Group (who also offers the same feature with a number of their apps). With this update and with those in the weeks that followed, it looks like POF made a few other tweaks to established features as well.
Many users are not happy with the more recent changes according to some of our visitor comments and those on Reddit.
The new live stream feature (which is only available on the app) have a lot of people talking and many went so far as calling it a Cam site with a PG rating. Jedi1josh on Reddit said:
They added a live stream feature that is basically a PG-13 version of cam girls. Instead of seeing nudity for money it's cleavage and butt shaking for digital "gifts" that I'm sure POF is charging for.
In fact, POF does charge for these virtual gifts that users can give to streamers. When a streamer receives a virtual gift, they also get a certain quantity of Diamonds. Once enough are accumulated these Diamonds can then be cashed out for actual money.
In a surprising move it looks like POF on the app has removed some free features completely or have them now only for users who have upgraded to a paid subscription. A lot of frustration seems to be with the search functionality of the app. Some of these changes reported include:
- The flirt option has been completely removed. This allowed users to send a quick predefined message to someone
- New Users search feature is now for upgraded users only.
- The search feature has been changed with a lot of advanced search features removed like preferred age range, religion, height, body type, what they were looking for, etc.
- You can only Favorite people on Live Stream. It is not possible for profiles anymore
- On the app, you can only send first contact messages to 25 users in 24hrs. Using the website, you can send 55 first contact messages in 24 hours
- You can only view the last 3 members who have viewed your profile
POF has finally just updated their Help / FAQ for the newly updated POF dating service. This should have launched with the new version of the service so it is about 2 months late. The old version which was still available only a week ago added to the confusion users are having with POF as it stated it was still possible to add favorites using the app and there was no mention of the new live streaming feature. Thankfully, the new version of the Help has cleared up some of the confusion and now states (among other things) that Favorites have been removed with Likes being used instead.
The website has not escaped from these changes as well. Some features that are behind a paywall on the app are still available to users for free on the website. This seems to be changing though, it was reported a month ago that some users have been seeing a new POF website in testing when they logged into the service through their laptop. This new website mimics the app version almost completely. As reported by other users this includes:
- Favorites have been removed
- The Contact History page has been axed where you could see if you made first contact or they did
- Advanced search features are gone and is similar to what is reported above about the app
- You can only search for a limited number of times before it is restricted
- Ability to see when someone was last online. Now only shows if online or not
- Cannot hide Paid Member Upgrade Badge
- Testimonials are gone along with Virtual Gifts (except in Live)
- All 5 relationship tests along with Ultra Match
- Member organized in person events
Over the last few weeks now, we only have see the new POF website so it looks like that the old version of POF.com is now gone and all users must now access the newly updated website. Over the next few weeks we will update our review of POF to reflect all these new changes.
