I expect if Signal were able to deploy a business version of their software with a number of big brands, those who have the app but don’t regularly use it would be happy to open it to send a message to whatever company they’re trying to contact, and those without Signal can download and set it up in under a minute. Reuters used to use WhatsApp for tip offs but totally switched to Signal back in January amid the WhatsApp-Facebook privacy policy commotion.
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I wish it was that simple.
I have old university friends on messenger, and work colleagues and groups on WhatsApp
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Obviously everyone’s nearest and dearest are different, but I’m confident I would just become a ghost without WhatsApp. It accounts for literally all of my messaging except with the Mrs. Family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, kids school…
It’s the group messaging which would be a real issue as those networks are never going to switch because of me or any one person. I would just be cutting off my nose to spite my face.
I guess one on one messaging could be done over SMS but as well as just being a crappy messaging solution, I’m fairly sure that they’re literally just sent as plain text so a pretty self defeating alternative to WhatsApp.
And as far as privacy and security go, WhatsApp is E2E encrypted so no one is reading my messages. If Facebook end up getting some metadata about who I’m messaging that’s a compromise I can live with.
WhatsApp is actually my compromise as I ditched actual Facebook and Instagram a long time ago. They’re the real privacy / security issue in terms of tracking.
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This is my thinking rn too. It’s been much easier to move from messenger to WhatsApp than getting people to signal will be, for me anyway.
I’ve never come across anyone using whatsapp… it’s wierd how these things differ. Almost everyone is using FB Messenger (family, friends, etc.)
I don’t use it because (a) it’s mobile only, and (b) it means handing my phone number out publicly and I’m simply not prepared to do that.
We’ve spent the last several months providing more information about our update to users around the world,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement. “In that time, the majority of people who have received it have accepted the update and WhatsApp continues to grow.
I’ve dismissed the prompt god knows how many times. Sad that just spamming users constantly is enough to get host people to give in.
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Fair enough about not giving out your phone number, but WhatsApp isn’t mobile only. You can use it on a PC/laptop through WhatsApp web:
Does this not still require a phone?
As far as I was aware, you can’t use it standalone. If I open the web/desktop app, it just asks me to scan a QR code from your phone.
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Yep, the web app bizarrely communicates with itself via your phone. If your phone is turned off / no wifi then the web/desktop app doesn’t work.
Yes you do still need a smartphone, so apologies for not explaining it properly. It’s useful for messaging on a large screen though, or whilst you’re using a PC anyway.
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Sorry, misread as well! That you weren’t just replying re the phone number bit.
Yeah I’m hoping this gets fixed. I remember some code leaking which suggested an iPad app coming and the suggestion was that it might get decoupled from phone number at that point. But ovi still no sign of either.
Yep, I heard the same as part of a new sync feature that removes the dependency on the phone.
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Is this because of end-to-end encryption between the two phones?
They’ve made a secure connection between themselves by design, so the web view is basically just mirroring your phone.
It’s the phone doing the communicating and secure transmission.
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This is what I have always thought re the web/ computer app.
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What I’m not sure on iOS is whether if backed up as part of a full phone iCloud backup is that encrypted? I generally don’t use the WhatsApp restore process and just have WhatsApp backed up as part of the phone/ restored as part of a full phone restore.
iCloud Backups are not encrypted
Backups to a computer are optionally encrypted.
It’s encrypted, but only certain things are end-to-end encrypted.
For most things, Apple has a “key”.
Some good info here:
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