Articles about WhatsApp

Being such globally recognized names, you would think that a rebranding of WhatsApp and Instagram would be a crazy exercise... but that's precisely what Facebook is doing.

In a move that is more than a little surprising -- and, many would argue, somewhat pointless -- the social networking giant is to rename the two products Instagram from Facebook and WhatsApp from Facebook. The renaming will make it clear that the company people love to hate is behind the chat and social networking tools.

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These days, if you want to chat with friends and family you probably do so through one of the many mobile messaging choices -- such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Snapchat.

Before mobile communications really took off, Microsoft’s cross-platform MSN Messenger (later rebranded Windows Live Messenger) was the chat tool. At its peak, some 330 million users a month were logging into the instant messaging client. MSN Messenger was discontinued in 2014, with Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype from eBay largely to blame for its demise, but if you’ve ever wondered what the chat tool might look like if it was revived today, then MSN Messenger 2019 Edition is the answer.

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By now you’ve heard the news: WhatsApp is currently rolling out an urgent update to all app users to close a major vulnerability that leaves unpatched phones at risk of being targeted by hackers. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, and if you plan to stick with the platform, don’t wait for an update notification: access your phone’s app store now to force install the update.

Except maybe now is the time to go one step further: perhaps it’s the perfect opportunity to switch to a different messaging platform. One that’s not owned by one of the major tech companies, is equally -- if not more -- secure, and which works on more than just your phone. Enter stage left, Telegram, and stage right, Signal.

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Users of WhatsApp could be infected by dangerous spyware just by receiving a call. The spyware, which is thought to  originate from Israeli cyber intelligence firm NSO Group, can be installed just by calling a target -- there is no need for the call to be answered.

A security advisory on the Facebook website does not go into much detail about the exploit, which takes advantage of a buffer overflow vulnerability. WhatsApp says it was discovered earlier this month, and with 1.5 billion users, there are a huge number of people that are potentially affected.

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If you've had trouble accessing Facebook today, you're not alone. Users in the US, Europe and Asia struggled to access not only Facebook, but also the WhatsApp and Instagram services owned by the social media giant.

Facebook has said little about this incident which comes just a month after it suffered its worst outage ever, causing problems for users for over 24 hours. This weekend's outage led to #FacebookDown, #instagramdown, and #whatsappdown hashtags trending on Twitter, and numerous reports of problems were posted to Downdetector.

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Facebook is hardly renowned for respecting privacy, but with WhatsApp the company is taking a small step to give users greater control.

A change to privacy settings for groups means that it is now possible -- at last -- to avoid being added to a group chat you don't to be involved in. WhatsApp has announced that "we're introducing a new privacy setting and invite system to help you decide who can add you to groups".

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The German cartel office, the Bundeskartellamt, has imposed new restrictions on how Facebook processes the data it gathers about users of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Germany's antitrust watchdog has hit the social network with a ban on combining user data it gathers from different sources, unless it has explicit consent from users. While Facebook is still free to gather data about Instagram users and WhatsApp users, this data cannot be automatically combined with data gathered via a users' Facebook account.

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Like Google constantly launching and closing services, the appalling disparate mess of apps produced by Facebook is something of an industry joke. Mark Zuckerberg is well-aware of this, and it seems he wants to do something about it.

Insiders at the company say plans are afoot to change the way Facebook Messenger, WhastApp and Instagram function, unifying their messaging system for better integration. On top of this, Zuckerberg also wants each of the three messaging services to feature end-to-end encryption.

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All social networks and messaging tools have been used as platforms to distribute fake news. Companies have taken various steps -- such as introducing fact-checking -- to help curb these problems, and now the Facebook-owned WhatsApp is introducing new measures that limit the number of people users can forward a message to.

The company has previously allowed messages to be forwarded to up to 20 people, but now -- in a bid to limit the spread of "misinformation and rumors" -- this has been reduced to just five.

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It’s a fair bet that we’d never have heard of Facebook, Instagram, Google and WhatsApp if the internet hadn’t been invented, but London-based graphic designer Thomas Ollivier has put his skills into re-imagining how some of today’s top tech brands might have looked in the pre-internet days of the 1980s.

The collection of images, which he’s titled Re:Birth, provides a fun glimpse into how technology has changed in the past 30 years. And boy has it changed.

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It had to happen eventually. Ads are coming to WhatsApp.

The monetization of the messaging app through advertising has been talked about for years, and the acquisition by Facebook served only to make it more likely. Now the company's vice president Chris Daniels has confirmed that ads are arriving in WhatsApp's Status section.

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Facebook and Google have struck a deal that benefits WhatsApp users. Starting later in the year, users will be able to store WhatsApp backups on Google Drive without using up any of their storage space.

The new arrangement means that WhatsApp users now essential have unlimited storage space available to them free of charge. But the company has also issued a warning that people need to take action if they want to avoid backups being deleted.

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A bug has been discovered in popular chat tool WhatsApp that completely undermines the blocking feature.

The idea behind blocking people on WhatsApp -- just like any other app or service -- is to prevent them from contacting you, and to stop them from viewing your activity. But the bug means that blocked users are still able to send messages to people who have blocked them, as well as viewing statuses and profile details.

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The latest update rolling out to WhatsApp users heralds the arrival of a batch of new group messaging features.

Available to both iOS and Android users, the new features include a Slack-style "group catch up" option, and it is also possible to add a description to group chats, and search for individual participants.

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With new privacy laws due to roll out around Europe next month, WhatsApp has increase its minimum age from 13 to 16.

The Facebook-owned messaging tool has made the change in order to comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which comes into force on May 25. To continue to use WhatsApp, users must now confirm that they are at least 16 years old and agree to the privacy policy and terms of services of the newly-created WhatsApp Ireland Limited.

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