On August 24, 2014, Koum announced on his Twitter account that WhatsApp had over 600 million active users worldwide. Another application called GB WhatsApp is considered malicious by cybersecurity firm Symantec because it usually performs some unauthorized operations on end-user devices. The hack, allegedly developed by Israeli surveillance technology firm NSO Group, injected malware onto WhatsApp users’ phones via a remote-exploit bug in the app’s Voice over IP calling functions. 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.
Platform support
On November 10, 2016, WhatsApp launched a beta version of two-factor authentication for Android users, which allowed them to use their email addresses for further protection. In December 2023, WhatsApp’s “View Once” feature expanded to include voice messages. This lets users share videos of themselves more quickly, and without adding anything to their device’s gallery. By June 2016, the company’s blog reported more than 100 million voice calls per day were being placed on WhatsApp. In October 2024, WhatsApp expanded their chat filter feature, adding the ability for users to create custom lists that contain specific chats of their choice.
Keep your privacy under your control with easy-to-use settings.
WhatsApp 2.0, released for iPhone in August 2009, featured a purpose-designed messaging component; the number of active users suddenly increased to 250,000. It became the world’s most popular messaging application in 2015, with 900 million users, and had more than 2 billion active users worldwide in February 2020. As of May 2025, the service had 3 billion monthly active users, making it the most used messenger app. According to Globes, already by 2013 the application was installed on 92% of all smartphones, with 86% of users reporting daily use. In May 2025, Meta reported WhatsApp had over 3 billion monthly active users globally. In May 2017, it was reported that WhatsApp users spend over 340 million minutes on video calls each day on the app.
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. WhatsApp has increasingly drawn its innovation from competing services, such as a Telegram-inspired web version and features for groups. In May 2014, WhatsApp crossed 50 million monthly active users in India, which is also its largest country by the number of monthly active users, then 70 million in October 2014, making users in India 10% of WhatsApp’s total user base. By February 2017, WhatsApp had over 1.2 billion users globally, reaching 1.5 billion monthly active users by the end of 2017. At that point WhatsApp was adding about 25 million new users every month, or 833,000 active users per day. In September 2017, security researchers reported to The New York Times that the WhatsApp service had been completely blocked in China.
In 2022, WhatsApp added the ability for users to turn off their online status. In August 2022, WhatsApp launched an integration with JioMart, available only to users in India. The Cloud API enables businesses to integrate WhatsApp with other software, have a central WhatsApp account for multiple users and implement advanced automation.
VoiceOver
To cover the cost of sending verification texts to users, WhatsApp was changed from a free service to a paid one. This new facility, to Koum’s surprise, was used by users to ping “each other with jokey custom statuses like, ‘I woke up late’ or ‘I’m on my way.'” Fishman said, “At some point it sort of became instant messaging”. In June 2009, when the app had been downloaded by only a handful of Fishman’s Russian-speaking friends, Apple launched push technology, allowing users to be pinged even when not using the app. WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger), owned by Meta Platforms, is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and Voice over IP (VoIP) service accessible via desktop and mobile app. The developer indicated that this app supports the following accessibility features. There may be a community-supported version for your distribution here.
Scarica Chrome per Windows
A month earlier, after Koum purchased an iPhone, he and Acton decided to create an app for the App Store. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. Privacy practices may vary based, for example, on the features you use or your age. The developer, WhatsApp Inc., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. It is often used to support the immune system and manage stress.
Chrome 系列
In 2015, some third-party WhatsApp clients that were reverse-engineering the WhatsApp mobile app, received a cease and desist to stop activities that were violating WhatsApp legal terms. The army recommended that all army personnel use Threema instead, as the service is based in Switzerland. Once again, the block was lifted following an appeal, after less than 24 hours.
This was implemented only on Samsung phones, with plans to expand to Android and iOS “soon”. In August 2021, WhatsApp launched a feature that allows chat history to be transferred between mobile operating systems. In July 2017, WhatsApp added support for file uploads of all file types, with a limit of 100 MB. Visual effects also became available, adding visual filters to a user’s video feed.
Some devices using dual SIMs may not be compatible with WhatsApp, though there are unofficial workarounds to install the app. Previously the Android and Nokia Series 40 versions used an MD5-hashed, reversed-version of the phone’s IMEI as a password, while the iOS version used the phone’s Wi-Fi MAC address instead of the IMEI. WhatsApp uses a customized version of the open standard Extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP).
Support
When this multi-device feature was first introduced to Android and iOS users, it could only show messages for the last three months on the Web version, because the Web version was syncing with the phone. In July 2021 the company was also testing multi-device support, allowing Computer users to run WhatsApp without an active phone session. By April 22, 2014, WhatsApp had over 500 million monthly active users, 700 million photos and 100 million videos were being shared daily, and the messaging system was handling more than 10 billion messages each day.
- The service became generally available in India and Brazil, and in Singapore for WhatsApp Business transactions only.
- The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has prohibited local banks from using instant messaging applications like WhatsApp for customer communication.
- In December 2015, it was reported that terrorist organization ISIS had been using WhatsApp to plot the November 2015 Paris attacks.
- In May 2025, Meta reported WhatsApp had over 3 billion monthly active users globally.
In May 2016, some WhatsApp users were reported to have been tricked into downloading a third-party application called WhatsApp Gold, which was part of a scam that infected the users’ phones with malware. Since the complete roll out of this feature, users cannot check old messages before this period on the Web version anymore. Similar to voice messages, this feature allows users to record and send short videos directly in a chat. In August 2013, WhatsApp added voice messages to their apps, giving users a way to send short audio recordings directly in their chats. WhatsApp has rolled out a feature called ‘Voice Status Updates’, which allows users to record voice notes and share them as their status on the app. This allows users to pin up aviator online send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption.
- According to WhatsApp, the exploit “targeted at least 100 human-rights defenders, journalists and other members of civil society” among a total of 1,400 users in 20 countries.
- The device that you have runs on ChromeOS, which already has Chrome browser built in.
- The enforcement of the privacy policy was postponed from February 8 to May 15, 2021, WhatsApp announced they had no plans to limit the functionality of the app for those who did not approve the new terms.
- If you don’t want Google’s repository, do ‘sudo touch/etc/default/google-chrome’ before installing the package.
WhatsApp released a statement saying that “the feature is working properly”, and that images stored in the camera roll cannot be deleted due to Apple’s security layers. 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. WhatsApp was criticized by security researchers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for using backups that are not covered by end-to-end encryption and allow messages to be accessed by third-parties. In November 2020, UPI payments via WhatsApp were initially restricted to 20 million users, and to 100 million users in April 2022, and became generally available to everyone in August 2022. The application can store encrypted copies of the chat messages onto the SD card, but chat messages are also stored unencrypted in the SQLite database file “msgstore.db”. The feature has to be turned on by the user and provides the option to encrypt the backup either with a password or a 64-digit encryption key.
In August 2021, the digital rights organization Access Now reported that WhatsApp along with several other social media apps was being blocked in Zambia for the duration of the general election. The ban was prompted by concerns of US authorities potentially accessing user data for such apps because of the CLOUD Act. In December 2021, the Swiss army banned the use of WhatsApp and several other non-Swiss encrypted messaging services by army personnel.
The desktop version was first only available to Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone users. WhatsApp Web is accessed through web.whatsapp.com and access is granted after the user scans their personal QR code through their mobile WhatsApp client. Linked devices allow the service to be used on multiple other platforms like desktop computers and smartwatches (e.g. WhatsApp Web, Facebook Portal), but also on other smartphones (called companions). In September 2024, WhatsApp expanded support for Meta AI, allowing users to send text and photos to Meta AI to ask questions, identify objects, translate text or edit pictures. 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.
Facing criticism, WhatsApp postponed the update to May 15, 2021, and had no plans to limit functionality of users, nor nag users who did not approve the new terms. This led many users to delete WhatsApp and instead use services such as Signal and Telegram. In the same month, WhatsApp began testing a feature to help users find out more information and context about information they receive to help combat misinformation. WhatsApp was announced to be the 3rd most downloaded mobile phone app of the decade 2010–2019. The company also reported that Windows Phone operating systems would no longer be supported after December 31, 2019.
An integer overflow bug allowed a malicious user to take full control of the victim’s application once a video call between two WhatsApp users was established. In September 2022, a critical security issue in WhatsApp’s Android video call feature was reported. This is reportedly not an isolated occurrence, as federal agencies can use the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to covertly track users without submitting any probable cause or linking a user’s number to their identity. The app collected data on who the users contacted and how often, and when and how they were using the app. In January 2022, an unsealed surveillance application revealed that WhatsApp started tracking seven users from China and Macau in November 2021, based on a request from US DEA investigators. However, the company did not reveal names of the end users, which according to a research by Citizen Lab include, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.