WhatsApp Download

New updates are available for those who use WhatsApp with Windows Phone and (in a few weeks) with Windows 10 Mobile devices. It has in fact just been released the new beta version 2.12.128 that introduces several new features. The first change allows users to select and change their status. The status list will be expanded by the user that can now quickly enter new status, which will be added to the list.

In addition the new beta brings a new option called Select Messages which is located in the top bar. Another improvement concerns ringtones, with the introduction of new sounds. The new tones are available for messages received when the app is running, and the user can decide to activate or disable them.

Furthermore, it seems that developers have also solved the emoticons issue, which, after the update, should finally be displayed correctly. Talking about emoticons, you can now find also on Windows Phone devices the popular (and controversial) “middle finger” emoticon. Also, as it often happens with beta versions, version 2.12.128 fixes some bugs. As usual, this new beta version is currently available only for beta testers, but, we hope, should reach the store quite soon.

But WhatsApp is quickly growing, so has to look forward. That’s why today there are good news also for those eager to use WhatsAp on Windows 10 Mobile. In fact WhatsApp team should soon release a major updated version of the popular app specifically designed for Windows 10 Mobile. The new Windows OS should be launched in October, together with other devices which will help to use the platform in the best possible way.

Close to the threshold of one billion users (a few days ago was given the announcement that the milestone of 900 million monthly users has been achieved), WhatsApp does not sit on its laurels, and despite some setbacks keeps trying to provide its users the best possible service.

WhatsApp Web, the browser version of the popular instant messaging app, have just lived very critical hours due to a flaw in its security system. The bug has put at risk the data of WhatsApp Web 200 million users, but luckily the problem has already been solved. Unfortunately, it is possible that in the meantime some of the users of the app have been affected by a cyberattack.

Now we really have to thank Kasif Dekel, researcher at Check Point laboratories, who, after some test, discovered the dangerous bug. But which was the trick? Dekel found out that it was simple but equally treacherous . All you needed to hack a device which was using WhatsApp Web was a vCard . The procedure was this. After founding out the telephone number of a potential victim, the hacker sent him a vCard, which the victim opened without thinking too much.

Opening the vCard a malicious code was initiated. The code contained very dangerous tools like RATs (remote access tools, which enable hackers to remotely access a device), bots and ransomware (which makes users pay money to have access again to their own data). But how could this happen? WhatsApp did not control the size of a vCard file, so the application did not notice that inside it there was an executable code and downloaded it.

The discovery was publicly announced on the 8th of September, but WhatsApp was already working to fix the bug since August. In fact, fortunately, Check Point reported immediately to WhatsApp Security Team this flaw on the 21th of August (WhatsApp Web was available from the 19th of August), and by the 27th of August it was fixed.

Oded Vanonu, Security Research Group Manager at Check Point, posted this message: “Thankfully, WhatsApp responded quickly and responsibly to deploy an initial mitigation against exploitation of this issue in all web clients, pending an update of the WhatsApp client“.

Who doesn’t use WhatsApp nowadays? It seems nearly nobody. This popular instant messaging application has reached in August 900 million active monthly users who, through this app, exchange messages, pictures, make Voice Calls and much more. Many platforms support this app, which can currently be used on Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone smartphones.These are the most famous, but we must not forget that you can enjoy WhatsApp also on other kind of devices, and Symbian is one of them.

In the last few days there were some news for Symbian users, who can now download a new beta version of WhatsApp. Version 2.12.128 has been released (the last one was version 2.12.100) and, along with some usual bug fixes, it doesn’t bring any change-log, at least not officially. Anyway, you can download this new version of WhatsApp from the official web site of the app. So, what actually changes? As we were saying, there aren’t any change log or any new features. But performances of chat and media have been improved, especially for the loading time of phones like Nokia N8.

To download the new WhatsApp update on your Symbian phone first of all you have to be connected to the internet. Then you need to launch WhatsApp. Once you have opened the app (which has a built in update checker completed by an updater function) you simply have to go to Menu > Settings > Updates > Check for updates. At this point, after a while, WhatsApp will show you if there is an available update. If so you have to click on the “Install update” button, and you will have the upgrade installed on your device.

Even if it seems not a great change in itself, nevertheless it represents something really remarkable, as WhatsApp is maybe the only app for Symbian which is still regularly updated. In fact, the developers of the other apps stopped improving their apps due to the end of the mobile OS. Symbian is still used by millions of people, particularly in Africa and Asia, where Symbian 3 Bell based phones are still used. At the moment developers can’t update any app through the Nokia Store (OVI) as Microsoft has already suspended every online service related to Symbian.

So, are you one of those people that when chatting with someone can’t help using emoticon a lot? This news might interest you very, very much. Kika Tech, the company that produces the famous Kika Keyboard, has released an update for its keyboard app. You may say: what does it have to do with my emoticons? That’s how: the upgrade includes native support for WhatsApp latest emoji’s update.

You have no idea of what a Kika Keyboard is? Strange, but in this case quite certainly you are not an Android user. In fact this special keyboard is an Android one, and it is the first one to introduce this implementation natively. As you probably know, the latest version of WhatsApp for Android enabled the use of new emoticons (for example the famous, and quite controversial, “middle finger” emoji, or the popular “Spock’s Vulcan salute”) and added the ability to choose the skin tone of your emojis.

Now, if you have the latest Kika Keyboard, you will be able to load WhatsApp’s emoticon automatically into the keyboard, whitout switching functions. Isn’t it a great news? According to Bill Hu, CEO of Kika Tech, the company has considered this upgrade necessary in order to help people communicate in a better and easier way. That’s what Bill Hu declared: “Kika has always been about helping people communicate their ideas in a way that best represents themselves. When we learned what WhatsApp’s latest update provided, it was only natural for us to prioritize getting this functionality out to our users.”

The news is a further indication of the growing (and fast) success of WhatsApp all over the world.  A tangible proof of the popularity of WhatsApp comes from recent statistics which show  that this popular instant messaging app in August reached 900 million active monthly users. And it really seems that WhatsApp’s race to the top will not stop here.

WhatsApp, the popular instant messaging app, in August reached another important milestone: 900 million active monthly users. It is an extraordinary result indeed, considering that the app created in 2009 by Jan Koum (who is now a Facebook board member) only during the past four months has earned 100 million users. And what are the results obtained by the other messaging services?

Facebook, with 1.5 billion users, is the leader, while Messenger reaches seven hundred million. In April, the last public data reported that the monthly active users (MAU) of the popular app were 800 million. Obviously the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook in 2014 (costed more than $21 billion) has largely contributed to the success of WhatsApp, which was already much appreciated by users all over the world.

Beyond that, also the usage of Android (which is the mobile operating system more used in the world) has greatly facilitated the success of WhatsApp. And statistics seem to confirm the importance of the cooperation between WhatsApp and Android. A recent survey published by Global Web Index shows that 73% of WhatsApp users access the app through Android.

The first signs of this unstoppable success could already be seen in March, when WhatsApp reached a billion installations on devices with Google os. Again, clearly, Facebook was the first to overcome this record, but then came WhatsApp. And the numerous updates that are regularly introduced, will only increase the growth of the app.

But after all these remarkable results, everyone seems curious to find out how Facebook can monetize the success of WhatsApp, and a huge debate has been opened among experts. The question arises because the positions of Zuckerberg and Koum seem to diverge. Infact Jan Koum and his team stated that their app won’t have “No ads! No games! No gimmicks!”, while months ago Mark Zuckerberg declared that “there are many clear ways that we can monetize”. So, who will win? We just have to wait to see what happens.

Are you curious to find out who are your best friends on WhatsApp? With a new hidden feature you can now immediately find it out. It seems that WhatsApp added this hidden tool in June, with the update 2.12.3, according to what Rhiannon Williams of The Telegraph says. But how does it work and how can you use it? Actually, it is quite simple.

In fact, if you open your settings options on WhatsApp, you can find the list of the people you contact most often. This tool lists your contacts in order of importance, creating a kind of ranking. So, to find out who your best friends are, you simply have to go to Settings, select Accounts and then Storage Usage. From here you can see the total amount of messages you have sent and received at the top of the page, and the people to whom you send more messages.

Also, you can order the messages by size, discovering in this way which conversations take up more space on your smartphone. How? Simply selecting the “Size” tab located at the bottom of your screen. For now this option is only available for iOS users, and it is yet unknown if and when it will be available also for Android or Windows Phone. Currently Android users are “only” allowed to see the total amount of sent messages and information on data use.

To think about it, it seems quite strange that WhatsApp left Android without this option, as it has always been the first one to be updated. So let’s wait for  the reaction of Android users to this news, maybe their reaction will force WhatsApp developers to add this feature also on other platforms.

It is certain that with 64 billion messages sent every day, WhatsApp is currently the most successful instant messaging application across the globe, and even though other services are emerging, its spread seems unstoppable.