Koum then hired a friend in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to develop a BlackBerry version, which arrived two months later. However, when early versions of WhatsApp kept crashing, Koum considered giving up and looking for a new job. A month earlier, after Koum purchased an iPhone, he and Acton decided to create an app for the App Store. The idea started off as an app that would display statuses in a phone’s Contacts menu, showing if a person was at work or on a call.
A message that promises to allow access to their WhatsApp friends’ conversations, or their contact lists, has become the most popular hit against anyone who uses the application in Brazil. Rudd publicly called for police and intelligence agencies to be given access to WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services to prevent future terror attacks. In September 2022, a critical security issue in WhatsApp’s Android video call feature was reported. The desktop version was first only available to Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone users. Similar to voice messages, this feature allows users to record and send short videos directly in a chat.
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- In August 2014, WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 600 million users.
- All you have to do is use the WhatsApp app on your smartphone and scan the QR code on the PC screen.
- Previously, users could opt-out of such data sharing, but the new policy removed this option.
- As of 2025, the software requires at least Android version 5.0 or iOS version 15.1 respectively.
- By February 2013, WhatsApp had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members.
- Both Telegram and Signal in particular were reported to get registration spikes during WhatsApp outages and controversies.
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Signal – Private Messenger
It allows users to send text messages, voice messages, and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. As of May 2025, the service had 3 billion monthly active users, making it the most used messenger app. This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption. The company also reported that Windows Phone operating systems would no longer be supported after December 31, 2019. WhatsApp was announced to be the 3rd most downloaded mobile phone app of the decade 2010–2019.
Third-party clients
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- The company also announced plans to implement reactions, the ability for administrators to delete messages in groups and voice calls up to 32 participants.
- The idea, he said, is to develop a group of basic internet services that would be free of charge to use – “a 911 for the internet”.
- At that point WhatsApp was adding about 25 million new users every month, or 833,000 active users per day.
- In May 2019, WhatsApp was attacked by hackers who installed spyware on a number of victims’ smartphones.
- According to the company, messages could be edited within a 15-minute window after being sent.
- Koum then hired a friend in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to develop a BlackBerry version, which arrived two months later.
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The app collected data on who the users contacted and how often, and when and how they were using the app. In January 2021, WhatsApp announced an updated privacy policy which stated that WhatsApp would share user data with Facebook and its “family of companies” beginning February 2021. Previously, users could opt-out of such data sharing, but the new policy removed this option. The new privacy policy would not apply within the EU, as it is illegal under the GDPR. There were a series of incidents between 2017 and 2020, after which WhatsApp announced changes for Indian users of the platform that labels forwarded messages as such. In February 2015, WhatsApp implemented voice calling, which helped WhatsApp to attract a different segment of the user population.
App support
On November 14, 2016, WhatsApp added video calling for users using Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone devices. This ability (named multi-device support) began testing Lucky Friends casino in July 2021 and rolled out to all users in April 2023. They link to and sync with WhatsApp actively running on a supported primary phone. Linked devices automatically log out after 14 days of inactivity on the primary phone. In June 2023, a feature called WhatsApp Channels was launched which allows content creators, public figures and organizations to send newsletter-like broadcasts to large numbers of users.
Mods and fake versions
In December 2023, WhatsApp’s “View Once” feature expanded to include voice messages. In August 2022, WhatsApp launched an integration with JioMart, available only to users in India. In April 2018, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum announced he would be leaving the company. To start using WhatsApp Desktop, you first must log in with your WhatsApp user account. All you have to do is use the WhatsApp app on your smartphone and scan the QR code on the PC screen.
Alternatives to WhatsApp Desktop
- On October 14, 2021, WhatsApp rolled out end-to-end encryption for backups on Android and iOS.
- Similar to voice messages, this feature allows users to record and send short videos directly in a chat.
- In 2023, WhatsApp replaced the Electron-based apps with native versions for their respective platforms.
- In February 2017, WhatsApp reached 200 million monthly active users in India.
- This would give them some context for why they are important, and that will lead them to pay for more services like this – or so the hope goes.
- The app collected data on who the users contacted and how often, and when and how they were using the app.
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According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp “has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines”. The messages involved discussing how to make an explosive device and a confession to the attack. In September 2019, WhatsApp was criticized for its implementation of a ‘delete for everyone’ feature. When a user deletes media for everyone, WhatsApp does not delete images saved in the iOS camera roll and so those users are able to keep the images.
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Filled with scammers, not a secure app
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Unlike messages in groups or private chats, channels are not end-to-end encrypted. In October 2023 they also introduced passkey support, where a user can verify their login with on-device biometrics, rather than SMS. In November 2023, WhatsApp also began rolling out support for sending login codes to a linked email address, rather than via SMS. Voice calls between two accounts were added to the app in March and April 2015. In September 2017, WhatsApp’s co-founder Brian Acton left the company to start a nonprofit group, later revealed as the Signal Foundation, which developed the WhatsApp competitor Signal.
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Features
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In 2016, WhatsApp was widely praised for the addition of end-to-end encryption and earned a 6 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s “Secure Messaging Scorecard”. WhatsApp Payments (marketed as WhatsApp Pay) is a peer-to-peer money transfer feature. WhatsApp has been officially supported for iPads and its iPadOS since May 27, 2025. In July 2025, WhatsApp stopped developing the Windows UWP-based app due to poor support and deprecation of the UWP framework by Microsoft. In 2023, WhatsApp replaced the Electron-based apps with native versions for their respective platforms.