Big Mumbai game real or fake: how to check the address you are on, without trusting anyone's list

Independent · not Big Mumbai · nothing here asks for a number, a password or a code

Is the "official" Big Mumbai website real?

Any site can call itself official; it is a word in a title, and nobody checks it before a page goes live. The same is true of app stores. A Google Play listing titled "Big Mumbai Official" describes itself, on its own store page, as a quiz about the city, in the Entertainment category. You can open it and read that yourself. It shows how little a title tells you.

So set the word aside and ask the one question that matters for your account: is this where I signed up? Your browser history and your sign-up message answer that; a title does not.

Independent · not Big Mumbai · nothing here asks for a number, a password or a code

What does the address itself tell you?

Quite a lot, once you read it the right way round:

• Read from the right. Control of an address sits with the word right before its final ending. In bigmumbai.page-host.org, the owner is page-host.org. The words on the left are sub-addresses that owner made up.
• Look at every letter. A doubled letter, a hyphen, a number or an extra word ("club", "win", "game", "2") makes a different address with a different owner, however alike the pages look.
• Look at the ending. ".com", ".in", ".net", ".org", ".app" are separate addresses. Someone searching "big mumbai .com" is guessing an ending; a guessed ending is a different site until your own records say otherwise.

Tap the address bar on your phone to see the full address. Chrome hides part of it until you do.

Independent · not Big Mumbai · nothing here asks for a number, a password or a code

What does the padlock icon prove?

Only that the connection between your phone and that server is encrypted. A copy set up this morning gets exactly the same icon, free and automatically. The padlock tells you nobody on the Wi-Fi can read what you send. It does not tell you who is reading it at the other end.

Independent · not Big Mumbai · nothing here asks for a number, a password or a code

How many sites carry the Big Mumbai name?

More than one. Searches for the name turn up a spread of addresses built from the same two words with a letter, a hyphen or a word added, plus download catalogues listing several different files under similar titles. We do not list them. A list would be out of date within days, and every name on it would be free publicity for whoever registered it.

What a crowd of look-alikes means for you is practical: a search result is not evidence. The first result is simply the page with the most links pointing at it, and links can be bought.

Independent · not Big Mumbai · nothing here asks for a number, a password or a code

Big Mumbai original, official channel, .com: a quick checklist

• "Original" in a title or a file name is typed by whoever uploaded it. Compare with your history instead.
• An "official channel" in Telegram or YouTube is run by whoever opened it. A channel that asks for your ID, password or OTP, or for a deposit to "verify", is not support.
• A link in a video description is a pointer somebody chose. Treat it as a lead to compare, never as the check.
• A page that asks for your code before you asked for one is the clearest sign there is. Leave it.

If you find you have been typing into a look-alike, change your password on the address you really signed up at, from a code you request yourself. The password page covers resets and why a customer care number found in search results is a risk.