Although Acton was working on another startup idea, he decided to join the company. Koum then hired a friend in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to develop a BlackBerry version, which arrived two months later. However, when early versions of WhatsApp kept crashing, Koum considered giving up and looking for a new job.
Control your data with confidence
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- In January 2022, an unsealed surveillance application revealed that WhatsApp started tracking seven users from China and Macau in November 2021, based on a request from US DEA investigators.
- By February 2013, WhatsApp had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members.
- The Cloud API enables businesses to integrate WhatsApp with other software, have a central WhatsApp account for multiple users and implement advanced automation.
- As of 2025, the software requires at least Android version 5.0 or iOS version 15.1 respectively.
- In July 2025, WhatsApp stopped developing the Windows UWP-based app due to poor support and deprecation of the UWP framework by Microsoft.
- In February 2015, WhatsApp implemented voice calling, which helped WhatsApp to attract a different segment of the user population.
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At that point WhatsApp was adding about 25 million new users every month, or 833,000 active users per day. 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. In May 2019, WhatsApp was attacked by hackers who installed spyware on a number of victims’ smartphones. A Wired report noted the attack was able to inject malware via calls to the targeted phone, even if the user did not answer the call.
MAJOR UPDATE
- At the time, it was the largest acquisition of a venture-capital-backed company in history.
- Rudd publicly called for police and intelligence agencies to be given access to WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services to prevent future terror attacks.
- In November 2023, WhatsApp added a “voice chat” feature for groups with more than 32 members.
- According to WhatsApp, the exploit “targeted at least 100 human-rights defenders, journalists and other members of civil society” among a total of 1,400 users in 20 countries.
- This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption.
- Once again, the block was lifted following an appeal, after less than 24 hours.
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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. Both airlines had previously launched customer services on the Facebook Messenger platform. In June 2009, when the app had been downloaded by only a handful of Fishman’s Russian-speaking friends, Apple launched push technology, allowing users to be pinged even when not using the app.
WhatsApp Web
Higher usage was reported by frontline clinical staff to keep up with care needs, even though NHS trust policies do not permit their use. In 2016, WhatsApp was widely praised for the addition of end-to-end encryption and earned a 6 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s “Secure Messaging Scorecard”. WhatsApp Payments (marketed as WhatsApp Pay) is a peer-to-peer money transfer feature. WhatsApp has been officially supported for iPads and its iPadOS since May 27, 2025.
User statistics
Koum updated WhatsApp so that everyone in the user’s network would be notified when a user’s status changed. On June 13, 2013, WhatsApp announced that they had reached their new daily record by processing 27 billion messages. According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp “has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines”.
Mods and fake versions
- 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.
- 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.
- On October 14, 2021, WhatsApp rolled out end-to-end encryption for backups on Android and iOS.
- In June 2009, when the app had been downloaded by only a handful of Fishman’s Russian-speaking friends, Apple launched push technology, allowing users to be pinged even when not using the app.
- In 2023, WhatsApp replaced the Electron-based apps with native versions for their respective platforms.
- WhatsApp was initially criticized for its lack of encryption, sending information as plaintext.
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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. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. As of May 2025, the service had 3 billion monthly active users, making it the most used messenger app.
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Voice and video calling and notes
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In October 2023 they also introduced passkey support, where a user can verify their login with on-device biometrics, rather than SMS. In November 2023, WhatsApp also began rolling out support for sending login codes to a linked email address, rather than via SMS. Voice calls between two accounts were added to the app in March and April 2015.
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A month earlier, after Koum purchased an iPhone, he and Acton decided to create an app for the App Store. The idea started off as an app that would display statuses in a phone’s Contacts menu, showing if a Starzbet person was at work or on a call.
WhatsApp is owned by Meta, whose main social media service Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009. In September 2017, security researchers reported to The New York Times that the WhatsApp service had been completely blocked in China. According to WhatsApp, the exploit “targeted at least 100 human-rights defenders, journalists and other members of civil society” among a total of 1,400 users in 20 countries.