15 Smartphone Games to Play for Free in Your Browser

The most popular applications for smartphones may well be games. But some of the top mobile games are also available for playing online. So you can get into the game even if you don’t have a fancy mobile device–or if you just want a bigger canvas to hold your gaming exploits. Either way, all you need to get going is a Web browser.

On mobile platforms, Angry Birds is one of the most popular games of all time. But you can also marshal your angry birds against the greedy pigs for free through a Chrome add-on–or play it on Facebook.

Soon after its introduction, this Scrabble-like game took the mobile market by storm. Play it for free on Facebook.

Words With Friends may be popular, but Scrabble is the original game for word buffs; and it has been a bestseller wherever it has been introduced–including for the original Kindle reader.

You can play Scrabble online (and many other games as well) with a free subscription to Pogo.com.

Some people consider Bejeweled the best puzzle game of all time. If you use the Chrome browser, you can play an HTML 5 version of Bejeweled.

If you’re looking for garden-variety zombie annihilation, this game has it in spades. You can play Plants vs. Zombies free at Pogo.com.

More than 60 million people have played this game involving a hungry monster that is forever on the hunt for candy. If you have Microsoft Internet Explorer on your computer, you can play Cut the Rope online for free.

If squishy vegetal carnage is your thing, you’ll love this action game. Myga.com offers a free online version of Fruit Ninja but beware: This version is a downloadable toolbar that may want to do more than you want it to.

The game is also playable for free as Fruit Ninja Frenzy from within Facebook.

This shoot-’em-up game costs smartphone owners $3, but you can play it for free as an add-on for the Chrome browser.

This Disney game is aimed at kids, but the upper levels can be challenging for adults, too. It can also induce nightmares if you accidentally pipe in toxic ooze instead of the water that Swampy the alligator is looking for.

Many people play slot-machine games on their mobile devices, and Apostek Software makes some of the most popular of these. To complement its mobile apps, Apostek makes slots for Facebook, where you can play Tropical Paradise Slots for free.

This classic game has become a hit with mobile-device users, who pay $5 for the pleasure of playing it. Online, you can play it for free at Pogo.com.

Not all mobile games work well in a Web browser, but some make it there in an altered form. Ragdoll Blaster, for example, receives the full graphic animation treatment in its mobile incarnation, which costs $2.

Online on Kongregate.com, there’s something called RagDoll Cannon, which has its own primitive charm and is free.

Yahtzee, another classic game, has inspired various knockoffs in the Android Market–Yatzy, Yam’s, and Yamzee, for example–and a stunning official version for the iPad. But even without a mobile device, you can play the game at Pogo.com.

This is one of those games that has many versions in the mobile space, but the online edition that runs as a Chrome add-on can hold its own against the mobile competition.

This game, which was a PC-based blockbuster, lets you choose building blocks to resurrect just about anything you want, but you need to seek shelter before nightfall when the monsters come out.

A lesser mobile version of this game is called Minecraft Pocket Edition. To play the browser-based version of Minecraft, you’ll have to register.