WhatsApp Messenger Apps on Google Play

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.

Higher usage was reported by frontline clinical staff to keep up with care needs, even though NHS trust policies do not permit their use.

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However, when early versions of WhatsApp kept crashing, Koum considered giving up and looking for a new job.

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WhatsApp also introduced chat filters, allowing users to sort their chats by All, Unread or Groups.

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WhatsApp was announced to be the 3rd most downloaded mobile phone app of the decade 2010–2019.

Since the complete roll out of this feature, users cannot check old messages before this period on the Web version anymore.
In October 2023 they also introduced passkey support, where a user can verify their login with on-device biometrics, rather than SMS.

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The ban 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.
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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.

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Visual effects also became available, adding visual filters to a user’s video feed.

In November 2023, WhatsApp added a “voice chat” feature for groups with more than 32 members.
In July 2025, WhatsApp stopped developing the Windows UWP-based app due to poor support and deprecation of the UWP framework by Microsoft.

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This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption.

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This ability (named multi-device support) began testing in July 2021 and rolled out to all users in April 2023.

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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.

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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 Desktop is the official WhatsApp client for Windows that lets you use this popular instant messaging tool from the comfort of your desktop.

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On May 9, 2014, the government of Iran announced that it had proposed to block the access to WhatsApp service to Iranian residents.

Now, the feature is also made available to iOS users, allowing them to link up to four iPhones.
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.

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.

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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”.