WhatsApp

WhatsApp was created by Jan Koum and Brian Acton. On February 19, 2014, WhatsApp was bought by Meta Platforms (formerly known as Facebook) for $19.3 Billion. As of 2020, WhatsApp has over 2 billion users worldwide and it became the world’s most popular messaging application in 2015.

Whatsapp was initially a small cross-platform centralized freeware application that allowed users to send and receive text and voice messages. In the following years of its foundation, WhatsApp implemented sending and receiving documents and files which allowed people to utilize it as some sort of a cloud file sharing service because it was fast, free, and convenient for small-sized files. Video call and location sharing have made WhatsApp one of the most used applications along with its other utilities. After being bought by Meta Platforms, WhatsApp became much of a social networking service (SNS) rather than a basic text and voice messaging platform with the implementations of story sharing section. You can install WhatsApp via your device’s app store. To sign up for WhatsApp, users need to have a mobile cellular number that can receive texts or calls.

WhatsApp is mainly used and developed for mobile devices but you can see your WhatsApp messages from another phone or device by using WhatsApp’s desktop applications along with browser extensions. You can install WhatsApp on PC by going to their website and downloading the required packages. When using WhatsApp on desktop however mobile devices have to stay connected to the internet with WhatsApp installed. In 2018 WhatsApp implemented video calls for up to four simultaneous speakers, since then you can make video calls on WhatsApp. WhatsApp introduced encrypted text messaging services in May 2012 but end-to-end encryption on text messages was officially announced after 2 years in April 2016. Since then, your text messages sent via WhatsApp are completely encrypted.

In 2018 WhatsApp has released a standalone business app to be utilized by small business owners to coordinate their workers and allow customers to send messages to the business for customer support in an easy way, it is called WhatsApp Business. Some parts of the world have embraced WhatsApp as the primary means of communication including large sections of Europe and Africa with Latin America and the Indian Subcontinent.