WhatsApp Messenger Apps on Google Play

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 acquisition was influenced by the data provided by Onavo, Facebook’s research app for monitoring competitors and trending usage of social activities on mobile phones, as well as startups that were performing “unusually well”. 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.

In May 2025, Meta reported WhatsApp had over 3 billion monthly active users globally. On August 24, 2014, Koum announced on his Twitter account that WhatsApp had over 600 million active users worldwide. 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. 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.

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. On April 5, 2016, WhatsApp and Open Whisper Systems announced that they had finished adding end-to-end encryption to “every form of communication” on WhatsApp, and that users could now verify each other’s keys. In November 2017, WhatsApp implemented a feature giving users seven minutes to delete messages sent by mistake.

Although Acton was working on another startup idea, he decided to join the company. Koum updated WhatsApp so that everyone in the user’s network would be notified when a user’s status changed. However, when early versions of WhatsApp kept crashing, Koum considered giving up and looking for a new job. Koum named the app WhatsApp to sound like “what’s up” and it was published on the Apple App Store and BlackBerry App World in May and June 2009 respectively.

Features

• In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client.
• 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.
• 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.

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. A Wired report noted the attack was able to inject malware via calls to the targeted phone, even if the user did not answer the call. In 2018, it was reported that around 500,000 National Health Service (NHS) staff used WhatsApp and other instant messaging systems at work and around 29,000 had faced disciplinary action for doing so. At the beginning of 2022, it was revealed that San Diego–based startup Boldend had developed tools to hack WhatsApp’s encryption, gaining access to user data, at some point since the startup’s inception in 2017.

• Users are able to use an avatar as their profile picture or use it for stickers during instant messaging, similar to those offered by Bitmoji or Memoji.
• This “Facebook coin” would reportedly be a stablecoin pegged to the value of a basket of different foreign currencies.
• In December 2015, it was reported that terrorist organization ISIS had been using WhatsApp to plot the November 2015 Paris attacks.
• 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.
• WhatsApp handled ten billion messages per day in August 2012, growing from two billion in April 2012, and one billion the previous October.

Linked and multi-device support

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. In September 2019, WhatsApp was criticized for its implementation of a ‘delete for everyone’ feature. 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”.

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.

Security and encryption

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. 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. According to Globes, already by 2013 the application was installed on 92% of all smartphones, with 86% of users reporting daily use.

Messenger Duo for WhatsApp

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. On May 9, 2014, the government of Iran announced that it had proposed to block the access to WhatsApp service to Iranian residents. In September 2017, security researchers reported to The New York Times that the WhatsApp service had been completely blocked in China. Another application called GB WhatsApp is considered malicious by cybersecurity firm Symantec because it usually performs some unauthorized operations on end-user devices. The message reportedly contained a malicious file, the receipt of which resulted in Bezos’ phone being hacked.

Supports

In 2023, WhatsApp replaced the Electron-based apps with native versions for their respective platforms. Similar to the WhatsApp Web format, the app, which synchronises with a user’s mobile device, is available for download on the website. 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. 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).

Filled with scammers, not a secure app

The new privacy policy would not apply within the EU, as it is illegal under the GDPR. On December 16, 2020, a claim that WhatsApp gave Google access to private messages was included in the anti-trust case against the latter. In its revelation via documents received from court, the group claimed that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ “national security and foreign policy concerns”. For security purposes, since February 1, 2020, WhatsApp has been made unavailable on smartphones using legacy operating systems like Android 2.3.7 or older and iPhone iOS 8 or older that are no longer updated by their providers. The bug was discovered by Check Point in August 2019 and reported to WhatsApp.

In March 2012, WhatsApp improved its location-sharing vegas casino apk function, allowing users to share not only their location, but also the location of places, such as restaurants or hotels. Visual effects also became available, adding visual filters to a user’s video feed. In December 2024, WhatsApp introduced several new video calling features, including the ability to select specific participants from a group to make a call, rather than calling all group members.

Later on, it also added support for iOS, Nokia Series 40, and Nokia S60 (Symbian). Originally it was required for the primary phone to keep an online connection to WhatsApp for linked devices to work, but now WhatsApp can run on linked devices without such requirement. Linked devices automatically log out after 14 days of inactivity on the primary phone. As of 2025, the software requires at least Android version 5.0 or iOS version 15.1 respectively. Currently, WhatsApp’s principal platforms, which are fully supported, are devices supporting mobile telephony running Android, and iPhones. By default, it is set to disappear in 24 hours, but it can be set for a longer amount of time and can be restricted for viewing by other contacts in the Settings menu.

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. 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. In July 2017, WhatsApp added support for file uploads of all file types, with a limit of 100 MB. Voice messages sent this way are deleted after the recipient listens to them the first time.

Unlike messages in groups or private chats, channels are not end-to-end encrypted. Users are able to use an avatar as their profile picture or use it for stickers during instant messaging, similar to those offered by Bitmoji or Memoji. In March 2021, WhatsApp started rolling out support for third-party animated stickers, initially in Iran, Brazil and Indonesia, then worldwide. Unlike other platforms, WhatsApp requires third-party apps to add Stickers to WhatsApp. Since then, linked devices support has expanded and more information is written in the Platform Support part of this article. In November 2023, WhatsApp also began rolling out support for sending login codes to a linked email address, rather than via SMS.

Third-party clients

The developer indicated that this app supports the following accessibility features. In 2016, WhatsApp was accused of copying features from a then-unreleased version of iMessage. On June 13, 2013, WhatsApp announced that they had reached their new daily record by processing 27 billion messages. The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has prohibited local banks from using instant messaging applications like WhatsApp for customer communication.

It was reported that US$3 million was spent in illegal concealed contributions related to this practice. After financial regulators in many regions raised concerns, Facebook stated that the currency, renamed Diem since December 2020, would require a government-issued ID for verification, and the wallet app would have fraud protection. This “Facebook coin” would reportedly be a stablecoin pegged to the value of a basket of different foreign currencies. The project reportedly involved more than 50 engineers under the direction of former PayPal president David A. Marcus. On February 28, 2019, The New York Times reported that Facebook was “hoping to succeed where Bitcoin failed” by developing an in-house cryptocurrency that would be incorporated into WhatsApp. The service became generally available in India and Brazil, and in Singapore for WhatsApp Business transactions only.

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, for example, based 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.

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. On May 18, 2017, the European Commission announced that it was fining Facebook €110 million for “providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover” in 2014. (The word “telegram” appeared in WhatsApp’s code.) Some considered it an anti-competitive measure; WhatsApp offered no explanation. He also said that new mobile phones would be sold in Germany with the WhatsApp brand, and that their ultimate goal was to be on all smartphones. Three days after announcing the Facebook purchase, Koum said they were working to introduce voice calls. Sequoia Capital received an approximate 5,000% return on its initial investment.

At the time, it was the largest acquisition of a venture-capital-backed company in history. On February 19, 2014, one year after the venture capital financing round at a $1.5 billion valuation, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) agreed to acquire the company for US$19 billion, its largest acquisition to date. That year, the company had $148 million in expenses and a net loss of $138 million. In April 2011, Sequoia Capital invested about $8 million for more than 15% of the company, after months of negotiation by Sequoia partner Jim Goetz. Koum then hired a friend in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to develop a BlackBerry version, which arrived two months later.