At the time, it was the largest acquisition of a venture-capital-backed company in history. Sequoia Capital received an approximate 5,000% return on its initial investment. Days after the announcement, WhatsApp users experienced a loss of service, leading to anger across social media. In 2016, WhatsApp was accused of copying features from a then-unreleased version of iMessage.
Messenger Plus for WhatsApp
As of 2025, the software requires at least Android version 5.0 or iOS version 15.1 respectively. WhatsApp also introduced chat filters, allowing users to sort their chats by All, Unread or Groups. This was implemented only on Samsung phones, with plans to expand to Android and iOS « soon ».
Telegram Messenger
The ban Lucky Friends casino was prompted by concerns of US authorities potentially accessing user data for such apps because of the CLOUD Act. The army recommended that all army personnel use Threema instead, as the service is based in Switzerland. This new encryption feature added an additional layer of protection to chat backups stored either on Apple iCloud or Google Drive. WhatsApp was initially criticized for its lack of encryption, sending information as plaintext. End-to-end encryption was only fully implemented in April 2016 after a two-year process.
Filled with scammers, not a secure app
However, the WhatsApp privacy policy does not apply in the EU, since it violates the principles of GDPR. In August 2014, WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 600 million users. By early January 2015, WhatsApp had 700 million monthly users and over 30 billion messages every day.
- {
- In November 2023, WhatsApp added a « voice chat » feature for groups with more than 32 members.
- 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 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.
- The organization reported a massive drop-off in traffic for the blocked services, though the country’s government made no official statements about the block.
- In July 2025, WhatsApp stopped developing the Windows UWP-based app due to poor support and deprecation of the UWP framework by Microsoft.
- On May 9, 2014, the government of Iran announced that it had proposed to block the access to WhatsApp service to Iranian residents.
|}
{
|}{
|}
Older versions
{
- This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption.
- This ability (named multi-device support) began testing in July 2021 and rolled out to all users in April 2023.
- In August 2022, WhatsApp launched an integration with JioMart, available only to users in India.
- In 2022, WhatsApp added the ability for users to turn off their online status.
- Visual effects also became available, adding visual filters to a user’s video feed.
- 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.
{
|}{
|}
{
|}
|}
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. On October 14, 2021, WhatsApp rolled out end-to-end encryption for backups on Android and iOS. Visual effects also became available, adding visual filters to a user’s video feed.
End-to-end encryption
In July 2017, WhatsApp added support for file uploads of all file types, with a limit of 100 MB. In November 2023, WhatsApp added a « voice chat » feature for groups with more than 32 members. In 2022, WhatsApp added the ability for users to turn off their online status. Three days after announcing the Facebook purchase, Koum said they were working to introduce voice calls. Although Acton was working on another startup idea, he decided to join the company.
- However, when early versions of WhatsApp kept crashing, Koum considered giving up and looking for a new job.
- WhatsApp also introduced chat filters, allowing users to sort their chats by All, Unread or Groups.
- WhatsApp Desktop is the official WhatsApp client for Windows that lets you use this popular instant messaging tool from the comfort of your desktop.
- WhatsApp was announced to be the 3rd most downloaded mobile phone app of the decade 2010–2019.
- One of the most important parts of WhatsApp Desktop is that, as mentioned above, it offers the same features as the mobile version but on PC.
- Now, the feature is also made available to iOS users, allowing them to link up to four iPhones.
{
|}
{
|}{
|}
{
Supports
|}
Both airlines had previously launched customer services on the Facebook Messenger platform. Koum updated WhatsApp so that everyone in the user’s network would be notified when a user’s status changed. WhatsApp Desktop is the official WhatsApp client for Windows that lets you use this popular instant messaging tool from the comfort of your desktop. At your disposal are exactly the same features and tools as in the mobile apps. In February 2017, WhatsApp reached 200 million monthly active users in India. On June 13, 2013, WhatsApp announced that they had reached their new daily record by processing 27 billion messages.
{
|}
Once again, the block was lifted following an appeal, after less than 24 hours. On May 9, 2014, the government of Iran announced that it had proposed to block the access to WhatsApp service to Iranian residents. WhatsApp is owned by Meta, whose main social media service Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009. In September 2017, security researchers reported to The New York Times that the WhatsApp service had been completely blocked in China. 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. Higher usage was reported by frontline clinical staff to keep up with care needs, even though NHS trust policies do not permit their use.
