What makes an official Thumbster score
Official scores are 60-second tests typed on a phone. Here is what qualifies, what counts as practice, and how leaderboards and personal bests use them.
Every completed test on Thumbster is either Official or Practice. The difference decides whether a score can appear on a leaderboard, set your personal best or be used to challenge a friend.
What makes a score official
- It was a full 60-second test.
- It was typed on a phone.
- It was saved to an account. You can play without one, but only saved scores can be ranked.
Before you start, the test tells you which kind you are about to take. On a phone you will see “Official Thumbster Test”. On anything else you will see “Practice Mode”.
What counts as practice
- Tests taken on a desktop or laptop.
- Tests taken on a tablet, for now.
- Tests where we cannot be confident the device is a phone, for example a phone browser set to request the desktop version of sites.
Practice scores are still saved to your profile and marked Practice. They are never ranked, and they never replace your official personal best.
How we tell
When you save a score, your browser reports a few general facts about the device, such as whether it has a touchscreen and roughly how big the screen is. Our server checks those against what your browser says it is and decides whether the score is official. We keep only that general classification, not a detailed fingerprint of your device. The privacy policy lists exactly what is stored.
Why phones only
A physical keyboard is far faster than two thumbs, so mixing the two would make the rankings meaningless. More on that in why phone and desktop typing speeds are different.
What official scores are used for
- Leaderboards. Each player appears once on a leaderboard, with their best official score for that period.
- Personal best. Your profile’s personal best is your highest official score.
- Challenges. Only an official score can be turned into a challenge link, and only an official score can beat one.
Fair play
Scores are worked out on our server from what you typed, not sent in as a finished number, and pasting into the test is blocked. We may remove scores that were not genuinely typed by thumb on a phone. If you think a score on a leaderboard is not genuine, tell us.