Author Archives: Christine

A new version of WhatsApp is available for those who use the app from Nokia Asha devices such as Symbian S40, Nokia Asha 201 and Nokia C3. This new version 2.13.23 fixes some bugs (as always happens with updates) and brings some changes to the jar (installation) file. Even if the file has been increased just a little bit (by only 3KB), 976 files have been modified by the developers (nearly half of them, if you consider that their total is of 2029).

In addition there are two new files (bhg.class and bhh.class), while the thumbnails file has been deleted. Now that you know what changes, let’s see how to install this new 2.13.23 version of WhatsApp for Nokia Asha devices. Ready? Well, the first step is to uninstall WhatsApp from your Nokia device. After that you need to download this new 2.13.23 jar file from whatsapp.con/s40.

Now you just have to go back to where you’ve stored the jar file and select it: the installation process will start. Now you have the latest Beta version of WhatsApp on your device. Easy, isn’t it? This is one of the secrets of the success of WhatsApp: it’s extremely easy to use it. 900 million monthly active users: this is the amount of people who use WhatsApp around the world. Really incredible. This Facebook-owned app is now the most used instant messaging application around the world and it seems that it has yet to give the best.

While WhatsApp developers keep on implementing the various versions of the app (which you can already use on Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Nokia Asha devices), there are a lot of other people who have new ideas to further improve it. During the last few days at the TechCrunch Disrupt London 2015 hackathon a team from England, Spain and France created and presented WhatsBot. What is this tool? The team says it is one of the first personal assistants for WhatsApp. How does it work? Nothing easier.

For example, when you need to find a place where to meet with your family or friends, WhatsBot comes to your help mixing location data from Foursquare, artificial intelligence and mapping data from Esri. Furthermore, it’s extremely easy to use. You just have to add WhatsBot’s phone number to your WhatsApp contact list. Once it is in your address book, WhatsBot can be used, for example,  in a group chat. In fact this tool will suggest a meeting point located in a place in between all the participants’ position. It seems a wonderful and useful feature, but during the last few hours WhatsApp banned WhatsBot from its service.

A new important and interesting tool has been released by ElcomSoft Co Ltd.. What is this about? This tool brings several acquisition options that will enable experts to extract an decrypt WhatsApp messages stored in iTunes and iCloud or in other WhatsApp backups. ElcomSoft Co Ltd, the company that created this tool, is a privately owned company which has its headquarter in Moscow (Russia) and develops solutions for digital forensics and IT security industries and cooperates with military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement providing a range of forensic products used in criminal investigations.

So, what are their plans for Whatsapp? Here what Vladimir Katalov, ElcomSoft CEO, said about it in a post on the Company’s blog: “We have recently released a brand new product, Elcomsoft Explorer for WhatsApp. Targeted at home users and forensic experts along, this Windows-based, iOS-centric tool offers a bunch of extraction options for WhatsApp databases. Why the new tool, and how is it different from other extraction options offered by Elsomsoft’s mobile forensic tools? Before we move on to that, let’s have a look at the current state of WhatsApp  …

Due to its overwhelming popularity, WhatsApp quickly became a target for spammers, hoaxers and plain criminals of all kinds. The very fact that the messenger app is designed to use secure end-to-end communications makes it difficult for the police to investigate cases involving WhatsApp messaging. Since no logs are stored on carrier’s side, requesting WhatsApp history files from the mobile carrier or an Internet service provider is not possible. The only way to acquire WhatsApp histories is imaging end-user devices or pulling data from local or cloud backups. And that’s exactly what we do in Elcomsoft Explorer for WhatsApp  …

Future Development: We are considering adding more features to Elcomsoft Explorer for WhatsApp to allow extracting WhatsApp histories from a wider range of devices. For now, the tool is limited to iOS, yet we want to add the ability to extract WhatsApp databases from Windows devices (Windows Phone 8.x and Windows 10 Mobile), BlackBerry backups and Android phones (via Google accounts). Stay tuned for more news!”  You can read the full article here.

WhatsApp has just released its latest Beta for Android devices, and, if you don’t want to wait for it to arrive on the Google Play Store, you can already download this new version 2.12.373 from the official site of the app. This new Beta, along with some bug fixes, finally brings some novelties that we think will be greately appreciated by the numerous users of emoticons. In fact version 2.12.373 not only adds dozens of new emojis, but reorganizes them into new categories (so now there are a total of 9 categories instead of 6).

The result is that the Android version of WhatsApp recalls WhatsApp Web or the iPhone when it comes to emojis. Among the new signs that now you can enjoy there is the horns gesture (which we expect will be as successful as the raised middle finger), together with new facial expressions for hugs and a lot more. Family emojis are now more numerous too. Furthermore you can find some updates also in the nature tab with the addition of a spider, unicorn, turkey and shamrock. And that’s not all.

The food tab sees new arrivals too such as a hot dog or a popcorn box, along with a popped champagne bottle and a taco. If you are a sport type (but not necessarily) you can have some fun using emojis of ice skating, weightlifting, racing cars and medals. A dedicated section to new travel destinations and places of worship could not be missing. Starting from this new beta version 2.12.373 you can find the objects organized in their own tab, where you can find, among others, shopping bags, a joystick, a microphone and even a funeral urn. The symbols tab now include also the hearts, so don’t search for them among faces and people anymore.

So, you can’t wait to use all these brand new emojis? To download and install this latest APK of WhatsApp simply go here  or here. But remember, to send and receive these emojis you (and your recipient) will need to have this latest 2.12.373 version or a blank box will show up.

You can never get bored of WhatsApp. At least not until the developers of this popular instant messaging application keep on releasing on a frequent regular basis new and always improved versions of this app. So far  you can use WhatsApp with Android devices, iPhones, Windows Phones, BlackBerry and Nokia Asha devices. It’s a fact that WhatsApp seems to be very special to its users, and the result is that today it is the most used instant messaging service all over the world, with 900 million monthly active users.

Most of the people use WhatsApp with Android devices, and that explains why this is the platform that receives major attentions by its developers. But, as we said above, there isn’t only Android. iPhone users are undoubtedly a lot, and their WhatsApp version is currently one of the most advanced. Just a couple of weeks ago there was a major upgrade of WhatsApp for iPhone, and this week, with the new version 2.12.12, we can see that the new features have been already improved.

So, where can you find the latest WhatsApp version for iPhones? You can download and install new version 2.12.12. straight from the Apple Store. What changes brings this new version? First of all, as usual, there are some bug fixes and also the stability has been further improved. The features added with the previous version 2.12.11  have been improved too, so now, among other options, WhatsApp for iPhones offers you:

• the 3D Touch Feature (that allows you to rapidly Peek and Pop chats);
• a rich preview of the links that you send and receive (and, what’s more interesting, if for some reasons you don’t want to share a rich preview or a link, you can always remove this option);
• a new design for the Settings tab (so now you are able to view all your starred messages simply going to Settings > Starred Messages).

Are you using WhatsApp with an Android device? Well, you’ve probably already noticed a singular problem that is causing a lot of debate among instant messaging apps users. It seems that this issue came with the latest update of WhatsApp for Android, version 2.12.367. It has been noticed that with this last version you still can see the links to Telegram website, telegram.me and telegram.org, but unfortunately they don’t work as hyperlinks, so you cannot access Telegram (which, for the record, is the biggest competitor of WhatsApp) straight from WhatsApp.

What happened exactly? It clearly seems another step dictated by the tough rivalry between the two successful instant messaging apps, but for the moment there are not official statements coming from the Facebook-owned service. This issue was highlighted by many (annoyed) users and also by Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, who took the opportunity to post a screenshot on Twitter together with this message: “Whatsapp started censoring links to Telegram in their Android app (i.e. for ~80% of the users).” And the problem is strange indeed and, considering the well-known feud between the two apps, the worst suspects seem to be justified, even if it is more likely that this is simply a bug (this time a big one, also in terms of image).

If WhatsApp is doing incredibly well (latest statistics report 900 million monthly active users), Telegram has no intention to loose this battle nor to throw in the towel. In fact, according to them, today there are 12 billion messages sent every day via Telegram, while its monthly active users are 62 million (according to last statistic of May 2015). However, it seems that this block is not occurring on iOS and Web client, and this strengthens the hypothesis of a bug. But rumours differ, and during the last few hours there’s a rush to find out what’s actually happening.

You’ll be happy to know that finally WhatsApp released an updated version for Android devices which can be enjoyed by everyone because it’s already available on the Google Play Store. And that’s not all. This new stable version (yes, stable, not a Beta) confirms the introductions of several features tested with the previous betas. So, let’s see immediately what else you can do now with WhatsApp for Android.

Rich link previews
This fantastic option allows you to send links to your contacts with the preview of the URLs. Furthermore, you can give your link a title. Handy, isn’t it? Thanks to this feature the recipient will not have to open the link immediately (or every time) to know what this is about.

Starred Messages
This new feature is already very popular. What is it about? By starring a message, you’ll be able to get back to it later, and, most importantly, you’ll be able to find it straightaway. What is the right procedure to star a message? It’s extremely easy. You simply have to tap and hold on it until a star button shows up at the top: tap on it as well. Using the same method you can remove the star. After you’ve stored your favourite messages you can access them from the overflow menu inside the app. Moreover, to make easier the search, the messages are organized chronologically and the contact’s name will be immediately visible.

Direct share on Marshmallow
First of all: this feature works only on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This options allows you to share things in a much quicker way. How does it work? Suppose you are online and want to share something, a button will pop up and will let you share with the last people you talked to.

If for some reasons you don’t want to download this 2.12.367 version straight from the Google Play Store, you can always install the APK Mirror installation file from here: http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/whatsapp-inc/whatsapp/whatsapp-2-12-367-android-apk-download/