When you arrive at an online casino you'll quickly notice one of two things. You may be asked to download the site's free software, typically right up front before you can do much of anything. Or you'll see the banners advertising "no download" and the invitation to start immediately. There are a number of things to consider when deciding which way you would prefer to go.

This breed of gaming is usually the simplest because you connect to the site and the software is "instantly" available right on your screen for as long as you are connected. But there is a tradeoff. In order to play on your computer, the "no-download" site has to download a mini-application to run in your browser. Will your browser be compatible? Will your system be able to run the mini-application well? In general, if you've got a reasonable powerful computer, say a Pentium II, and latest version of your browser, everything will go smoothly. But if you're on an older machine, use a nonstandard browser, or haven't upgraded your browser in a while you could encounter some difficulties. That old 486 with Netscape 2.x is not going to cut it.

Aside from questions of pay-out ratios and game choice, it really all comes down to how good the game looks on your screen, and how reliable it is. No-download sites are typically a little less attractive graphically than their download counterparts and theoretically somewhat less secure. The former is easy to verify -- trust what you see -- and the later is totally open to debate. No-download systems include Java and other browser (html) based systems and WebTV.

These systems take a very different approach. In this case your computer is asked to do the bulk of the work (graphics, game play, and security) and it sends updates to the master site for processing. Because it is an application running on your computer the graphics can be quite sophisticated offering the best in 3D, lighting, color, and visual feedback. The animations can be more advanced and the player response better. In other words, it looks better and plays faster because it's running an advanced software package on your machine which is way faster than anything can run over the Net.

The downside here is that you have to accept the responsibility of installing the software in the first place and are often expected to ensure that the local data does not get lost (i.e. do backups). Also, the applications will eat up space on your harddrive and will have to coexist peacefully with the rest of your applications. Generally speaking, none of these requirements are very demanding and all should go well once the package is installed on your machine. As to the packages themselves, be warned that they can get pretty large. The modest ones are 2-4MB. Others can get up to 10-15MB, or even as high as 20MB, depending on the options you choose, and that's a pretty hefty download. Once installed they can occupy as much as 30 or 40MB on your harddrive so be sure you've got that kind of space to spare.

• "Download and install" means nice graphics and fast play but places slightly heavier demands on the user and their computer.
• "No-download" may not be as pretty or fast, but they're simple to use and essentially disposable: when you log off the Net they disappear and that's that.