One of the largest social media applications for chatting, WhatsApp, claims to be a secure platform for social interaction. However, the latest statistics prove the claims are majorly false. In 2019, WhatsApp closed the year with almost 12 security vulnerabilities. Out of these 12 vulnerabilities, seven were reported to be critical. So after knowing the weak security system of WhatsApp, is there any alternative for the purpose that the app serves?
After the alleged hacking of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s WhatsApp account, the application was collectively accused of being insecure. Apart from this, the application’s credibility was compromised when it was accused of snooping on journalists and human rights activists in India through spyware.
The National Vulnerability Database by the end of 2019 reported 12 security vulnerabilities of the application, which damaged the so-called secure application image of WhatsApp. The seven out of twelve critical security vulnerabilities of the application included transferring of malicious codes on smartphone users that allowed hackers to make the app completely disabled for the affected people.
Another latest incident regarding WhatsApp’s weak security plan occurred when Jodan Wilson, a journalist for DW.com leaked some alarming findings regarding the app’s private groups. In his tweet, Jordan said that many of WhatsApp’s private groups are exposed to the open web. To explain this, he further said that the group link we use to invite other members to join our group known as “Invite to Group via Link,” is when posted on the public internet is indexed by major search engines such as Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGO.
When the link of your private group on the open web can join the group without yours or anyone else’s permission. In addition, the phone numbers and previous messages will be laid bare for the newcomer to read and enjoy.
However, WhatsApp addressed and accepted the vulnerabilities and gave assurance of fixing these bugs, the doubt ignited in the mind of users regarding the app’s credibility is hard to remove.
WhatsApp to Shut Down its App on Number of Smartphones by the End of 2020
If you think that WhatsApp owners would have come up with a strong security system to limit security vulnerabilities then that’s not happening. Instead, the application decided to withdraw its support from many smartphones, which they believe are not friendly for the application’s operating system. Smartphone devices such as all window phones, iOS 8 and lower and Android 4.0.3 and lower.
In its FAQ page, the application announced that it is no longer developing an operating system for the above-mentioned smartphones. Therefore, some features of the application will stop running on these smartphones any time soon.
This was announced on July 1, 2019, and it was said that WhatsApp would stop supporting the mentioned smartphones from February 1, 2020.
Therefore, now that the application is not going to support a large number of smartphone devices and is also carrying the baggage of security vulnerabilities, we think it’s safe to say that users should start looking for an alternative social chatting app.
While learning about the new WhatsApp policy of not supporting the old smartphones and the reports regarding its ill credibility, we came across some of the applications, which are claiming to be better than WhatsApp. Some of these applications are being used widely by internet users, while some of them are not yet famous. Read on to know more about the applications that can be your next WhatsApp:
Telegram
Arguably, the potential alternative for messaging and chatting application for WhatsApp is Telegram. The application supports many of the features that are similar to what the WhatsApp app holds.
The interesting part about this WhatsApp rival is that it has some of the most exciting features that even WhatsApp does not have. Features such as a slow mode that limits the number of messages a user sends in the group is a unique part of Telegram. This gives admins a better control of the group to limit the messages spamming.
Another interesting Telegram feature is the muted messages. Through this feature, an individual can send a message to another individual in a group and other receivers would not be alerted or disturbed.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov has often accused Facebook-owned WhatsApp of not being secure. In addition, he assures that his application, Telegram, is a much better choice for privacy-concerned users.
Viber
With more than 260 million users, Viber is currently more popular than Telegram. However, the application is restricted to some specific regions, which means that only if your friends are from the region that the app supports only then you can make use of this application.
The regions like Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa are the core user base of Viber. In North America, people can use the application smoothly by enabling Spectrum internet Bakersfield, a reliable internet service provider in the region.
The application comes with an instant voice message, video messaging, audio messaging, video calls and group chat.
You might have heard of this application name before. Billions of people use one of the strongest competitors of WhatsApp, the WeChat application every day.
The application also supports companies that want to use the platform for corporate communication.
Summary
One of the most widely used chats applications, WhatsApp has been facing issues regarding its system operation policies and security vulnerabilities. However, in this write up we have mentioned some of the applications that have the potential to give WhatsApp a tough competition.
