Ever since the beginnings of the online poker industry, the main way of playing on an online poker site has been by downloading a software client and connecting to the poker room through it. Nowadays, many poker sites provide alternative ways of connecting to their poker rooms. However, downloadable poker sites are still the number one method of playing online poker.

Downloadable Poker Rooms for Players in United States:

Advantages of Downloadable Poker Sites

Downloadable poker sites have several advantages over the alternatives offered by many poker rooms, such as instant play, no download poker rooms. The downloadable poker client tends to be the most well-developed version of each poker room’s software, meaning you’ll have the best features, the most available games, and the most stable platform for playing. You’ll also tend to continue getting updates to the poker room software faster, and get to see the newest features rolled out well before they’re added to the no-download version.

Disadvantages of Downloadable Poker Sites

On the other hand, there are a couple of cons when dealing with a downloadable poker site. For instance, if you’re at a computer where you’re not comfortable downloading poker software, such as a work or school computer, then a downloadable poker site won’t help you much; you’d be better served by an instant play casino. And while this is rarely an issue these days, it is worth noting that downloadable poker sites do take up some room on your hard drive, so those using older computers (or those who like keeping their hard drives filled to the brim) may not want to use the space it requires.

More commonly these days, players are running into another issue with downloadable poker sites: they simply aren’t made for the operating systems that many players use. PC users nearly always have a downloadable poker site available to them, and many sites now also offer Mac clients, too. But for Linux users and others, downloadable poker sites simply aren’t an option. These players must either use no download poker sites, or use programs that allow them to use Windows programs in their OS.