Can you play imvu with no download needed?

No, you cannot. You have to download it but IMVU has improved its problems during the past years.

Another contributor said:

You can't play IMVU without downloading it. If you do download it and get a speech bubble at the bottom of your screen saying IMVU.execorruption, delete it as soon as it pops up. It will cause infected files on your computer and it will corrupt the whole of your computer so that you will not be able to go on it.