Now, the feature is also made available to iOS users, allowing them to link up to four iPhones. WhatsApp officially rolled out the Companion mode for Android users, allowing linking up to five Android phones to a single account. In April 2023, the app rolled out a feature that would allow account access across multiple phones, in a shift that would make it more like competitors.
Security and encryption
WhatsApp was announced to be the 3rd most downloaded mobile phone app of the decade 2010–2019. In December 2019, WhatsApp announced that a new update would lock out any Apple users who had not updated to iOS 9 or higher and Samsung, Huawei, Sony and Google users who had not updated to version 4.0 by February 1, 2020. In August 2014, WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 600 million users.
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. 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.
- In August 2014, WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 600 million users.
- In July 2017, WhatsApp added support for file uploads of all file types, with a limit of 100 MB.
- Later on, it also added support for iOS, Nokia Series 40, and Nokia S60 (Symbian).
- 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.
- 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.
Supports
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». WhatsApp confirmed the partnership to reporters, but there was no announcement or documentation about the encryption feature on the official website, and further requests for comment were declined. Open Whisper Systems said that they had already incorporated the protocol into the latest WhatsApp client for Android, and that support for other clients, group/media messages, and key verification would be coming soon after. On November 18, 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the encryption protocol used in Signal into each WhatsApp client platform.
Filled with scammers, not a secure app
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. 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.
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.
Version 25.35.72
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.
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.
Linked and multi-device support
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. 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. Similar to voice messages, this feature allows users to record and send short videos directly in a chat. This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption. In May 2017, it was reported that WhatsApp users spend over 340 million minutes on video calls each day on the app.
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. In April 2022, WhatsApp announced undated plans to roll out a Communities feature allowing several group chats to exist in a shared space, getting unified notifications and opening up smaller discussion groups. It was also not available for iOS users on launch, due to limitations from Apple. The web client was not standalone, and required the user’s phone to stay on and connected to the internet. In a later update on November 30, WhatsApp added a Secret Code feature, which allows those who use locked chats to enter a unique password that hides those chats from view when unlocking the app. In October 2023 they also introduced passkey support, where a user can verify their login with on-device biometrics, rather than SMS.
WhatsApp Web
- In December 2019, WhatsApp announced that a new update would lock out any Apple users who had not updated to iOS 9 or higher and Samsung, Huawei, Sony and Google users who had not updated to version 4.0 by February 1, 2020.
- Unlike their 32-person group calls, starting a voice chat does not call all group members directly; they instead receive a notification to join the voice chat.
- In April 2023, the app rolled out a feature that would allow account access across multiple phones, in a shift that would make it more like competitors.
- 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.
- 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.
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. In July 2021 the company was also testing multi-device support, allowing computer users to run WhatsApp without an active phone session.
Similar apps
The messages involved discussing how to make an explosive device and a confession to the attack. In December 2015, it was reported that terrorist organization ISIS had been using WhatsApp to plot the November 2015 Paris attacks. In its revelation via documents received via court, the group claimed that the lawsuit whats the legal drinking age in russia brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ «national security and foreign policy concerns».
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». Days after the announcement, WhatsApp users experienced a loss of service, leading to anger across social media. Some time in 2013 WhatsApp acquired Santa Clara–based startup SkyMobius, the developers of Vtok, a video and voice calling app. By February 2013, WhatsApp had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members. 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».
Similar to the WhatsApp Web format, the app, which synchronises with a user’s mobile device, is available for download on the website. The desktop version was first only available to Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone users. This ability (named multi-device support) began testing in July 2021 and rolled out to all users in April 2023. 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.
Features
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). They link to and sync with WhatsApp actively running on a supported primary phone. Currently, WhatsApp’s principal platforms, which are fully supported, are devices supporting mobile telephony running Android, and iPhones.