According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp "has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines". WhatsApp handled ten billion messages per day in August 2012, growing from two billion in April 2012, and one billion the previous October. 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. On May 2, 2016, mobile providers in Brazil were ordered to block WhatsApp for 72 hours for the service's second failure to cooperate with criminal court orders.
- Pure Storage (PSTG) stock dropped 13% before the bell Wednesday, a day after the data-storage services firm reported worse-than-expected fiscal 2026 third-quarter GAAP profit.
- This was implemented only on Samsung phones, with plans to expand to Android and iOS « soon ».
- In November 2023, WhatsApp added a « voice chat » feature for groups with more than 32 members.
- Shares of the clothing retailer were up about 15% in recent trading, after the company posted stronger-than-expected earnings, with a bit of help from ads featuring actress Sydney Sweeney and NFL star and Taylor Swift fiance Travis Kelce.
- Previously between March 2016 and May 2017, only limited file types categorised as images (JPG, PNG, GIF), videos (MP4, AVI), and documents (CSV, DOC/DOCX, PDF, PPT/PPTX, RTF, TXT, XLS/XLSX), were allowed to be shared for file attachments.
- Further, the Cabinet Office had claimed that since many messages were not relevant to the inquiry, it only needed to hand over material it had selected as being relevant.
Walmart's Plan for Serving Wealthy Urban Shoppers: Stores You Can't Go Into
This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption. Providing a bundle of these free of charge to users will work like a gateway drug of sorts – users who may be able to afford data services and phones these days just don't see the point of why they would pay for those data services. Pure Storage (PSTG) stock dropped 13% before the bell Wednesday, a day after the data-storage services firm reported worse-than-expected fiscal 2026 third-quarter GAAP profit. The stronger outlook could help kick-start a rebound for the company's shares, which were down nearly 30% for 2025 heading into Wednesday's results after its prior outlook disappointed.
Learn about Meta
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. 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. 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 November 2017, WhatsApp implemented a feature giving users seven minutes to delete messages sent by mistake. WhatsApp automatically compares all the phone numbers from the device's address book with its central database of WhatsApp users to automatically add contacts to the user's WhatsApp contact list.
Voice messages sent this way are deleted after the recipient listens to them the first time. Edited messages were tagged as "edited" to inform recipients that the content had been modified. In October 2018, the "Swipe to Reply" option was added to the Android beta version, 16 months after it was introduced for iOS.
Previously the WhatsApp user's handset had to be connected to the Internet for the browser application to function but as of an update in October 2021 (and integrated by default in WhatsApp as of April 2022) that is no longer the case. This ability (named multi-device support) began testing in July 2021 and rolled out to all users in April 2023. 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).
Similar apps
- 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.
- Similar to the WhatsApp Web format, the app, which synchronises with a user’s mobile device, is available for download on the website.
- With Status you can share text, photos, video, and GIF updates that disappear after 24 hours.
- 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.
- Joining the S&P 500 has not helped Sandisk (SNDK) shares much.
- Microchip Technology (MCHP) was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 as shares climbed nearly 10% after the chipmaker boosted its guidance on strong bookings and an improved backlog.
Once connected, you can use almost every feature available on mobile. This version functions the same as the Store version. WhatsApp Desktop offers native performance, supports notifications, and works even when your phone is offline (after the multi-device update). In this detailed guide, we’ll walk you through how to install WhatsApp on your Windows PC, set it up, use all its features, and troubleshoot common issues.
We and our partners process data to provide:
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 betory casino no deposit bonus for multiple users and implement advanced automation.
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. The company also announced plans to implement reactions, the ability for administrators to delete messages in groups and voice calls up to 32 participants. In August 2013, WhatsApp added voice messages to their apps, giving users a way to send short audio recordings directly in their chats.
Three days after announcing the Facebook purchase, Koum said they were working to introduce voice calls. These could be a social networking service like Facebook, a messaging service, maybe search and other things like weather. By February 2013, WhatsApp had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members. 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. The service was created by WhatsApp Inc. of Mountain View, California, which was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for approximately US$19.3 billion. The developer indicated that this app supports the following accessibility features.
Status Saver Video Photo Save
WhatsApp also introduced chat filters, allowing users to sort their chats by All, Unread or Groups. In April 2024, an AI-powered "Smart Assistant" became widely available in WhatsApp, allowing users to ask it questions or have it complete tasks such as generating images. Channels were initially only available to users in Colombia and Singapore, then later Egypt, Chile, Malaysia, Morocco, Ukraine, Kenya and Peru before becoming widely available in September 2023. It was also not available for iOS users on launch, due to limitations from Apple.