Visual effects also became available, adding visual filters to a user’s video feed. In December 2024, WhatsApp introduced several new video calling features, including the ability to select specific participants from a group to make a call, rather than calling all group members. In June 2024, improvements were made to voice and video calls, allowing up to 32 participants in video calls, chicken road app adding audio to screen sharing, and introducing a new codec to increase call reliability. In November 2023, WhatsApp added a “voice chat” feature for groups with more than 32 members. Later in September 2018, WhatsApp introduced group audio and video call features.
On November 29, 2021, an FBI document was uncovered by Rolling Stone, revealing that WhatsApp responds to warrants and subpoenas from law enforcement within minutes, providing user metadata to the authorities. This new encryption feature added an additional layer of protection to chat backups stored either on Apple iCloud or Google Drive. The new privacy policy would not apply within the EU, as it is illegal under the GDPR. On December 16, 2020, a claim that WhatsApp gave Google access to private messages was included in the anti-trust case against the latter. In its revelation via documents received from court, the group claimed that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ “national security and foreign policy concerns”. For security purposes, since February 1, 2020, WhatsApp has been made unavailable on smartphones using legacy operating systems like Android 2.3.7 or older and iPhone iOS 8 or older that are no longer updated by their providers.
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In January 2020, WhatsApp reached over 5 billion installs on Google Play Store making it only the second non-Google app to achieve this milestone. According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp “has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines”. WhatsApp handled ten billion messages per day in August 2012, growing from two billion in April 2012, and one billion the previous October. In 2015, some third-party WhatsApp clients that were reverse-engineering the WhatsApp mobile app, received a cease and desist to stop activities that were violating WhatsApp legal terms.
The enforcement of the privacy policy was postponed from February 8 to May 15, 2021, WhatsApp announced they had no plans to limit the functionality of the app for those who did not approve the new terms. Previously, users could opt-out of such data sharing, but the new policy removed this option. In January 2021, WhatsApp announced an updated privacy policy which stated that WhatsApp would share user data with Facebook and its “family of companies” beginning February 2021. As the complaint was heavily redacted due to being an ongoing case, it did not disclose whether this was alleged tampering with the app’s end-to-end encryption, or Google accessing user backups.clarification needed When a user deletes media for everyone, WhatsApp does not delete images saved in the iOS camera roll and so those users are able to keep the images. WhatsApp was criticized by security researchers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for using backups that are not covered by end-to-end encryption and allow messages to be accessed by third-parties.
In November 2017, WhatsApp implemented a feature giving users seven minutes to delete messages sent by mistake. In November 2025, WhatsApp announced that they would update their About feature, which allows users to add a short message to explain what they are doing. The company also announced plans to implement reactions, the ability for administrators to delete messages in groups and voice calls up to 32 participants. In October 2023, support for logging in to multiple (meaning two) accounts was added, allowing users to switch between different WhatsApp accounts in the same app. In October 2019, WhatsApp officially launched a new fingerprint app-locking feature for Android users. In November 2024, the ability to transcribe voice messages was added, allowing users to read out what was said in a voice message, rather than listening to the audio.
WhatsApp Messenger
Open Whisper Systems said that they had already incorporated the protocol into the latest WhatsApp client for Android, and that support for other clients, group/media messages, and key verification would be coming soon after. In February 2015, WhatsApp implemented voice calling, which helped WhatsApp to attract a different segment of the user population. Previously the Android and Nokia Series 40 versions used an MD5-hashed, reversed-version of the phone’s IMEI as a password, while the iOS version used the phone’s Wi-Fi MAC address instead of the IMEI. WhatsApp uses a customized version of the open standard Extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP). In July 2025, WhatsApp stopped developing the Windows UWP-based app due to poor support and deprecation of the UWP framework by Microsoft.
How do search engines generate related searches?
In October 2018, the “Swipe to Reply” option was added to the Android beta version, 16 months after it was introduced for iOS. In December 2021, WhatsApp changed the default setting from “everyone” to only people in the user’s contacts or who have been conversed with (“nobody” is also an option). On February 24, 2017, WhatsApp launched a new Status feature similar to Snapchat and Facebook stories.
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 (officially WhatsApp Messenger), owned by Meta Platforms, is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and Voice over IP (VoIP) service accessible via desktop and mobile app. The developer indicated that this app supports the following accessibility features. The ranking is probably influenced by user’s previous search history. I would like to know how search engines like Bing generate related searches when the user starts typing into the search box. The images.readLink attribute in the official API which provides the URL for the equivalent API image search can be found at inline_images.serpapi_link in our API.
Features
- Some devices using dual SIMs may not be compatible with WhatsApp, though there are unofficial workarounds to install the app.
- Further, the Cabinet Office had claimed that since many messages were not relevant to the inquiry, it only needed to hand over material it had selected as being relevant.
- This new facility, to Koum’s surprise, was used by users to ping “each other with jokey custom statuses like, ‘I woke up late’ or ‘I’m on my way.'” Fishman said, “At some point it sort of became instant messaging”.
- WhatsApp has been officially supported for iPads and its iPadOS since May 27, 2025.
In November 2019, WhatsApp released a new privacy feature that let users decide who can add them to groups. On April 5, 2016, WhatsApp and Open Whisper Systems announced that they had finished adding end-to-end encryption to “every form of communication” on WhatsApp, and that users could now verify each other’s keys. They expressed the concern that regular WhatsApp users still could not tell the difference between end-to-end encrypted messages and regular messages. WhatsApp uses a “store and forward” mechanism for exchanging messages between two users.
The service became generally available in India and Brazil, and in Singapore for WhatsApp Business transactions only. WhatsApp Payments (marketed as WhatsApp Pay) is a peer-to-peer money transfer feature. According to a white paper that was released along with the announcement, WhatsApp messages are encrypted with the Signal Protocol. WhatsApp confirmed the partnership to reporters, but there was no announcement or documentation about the encryption feature on the official website, and further requests for comment were declined. On November 18, 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the encryption protocol used in Signal into each WhatsApp client platform. When a user sends a message, it is stored on a WhatsApp server, which tries to forward it to the addressee, and repeatedly requests acknowledgement of receipt.
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On August 24, 2014, Koum announced on his Twitter account that WhatsApp had over 600 million active users worldwide. However, the company did not reveal the names of the end users, which according to research by Citizen Lab include, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. The hack, allegedly developed by Israeli surveillance technology firm NSO Group, injected malware onto WhatsApp users’ phones via a remote-exploit bug in the app’s Voice over IP calling functions.
- This lets users share videos of themselves more quickly, and without adding anything to their device’s gallery.
- In March 2021, WhatsApp started rolling out support for third-party animated stickers, initially in Iran, Brazil and Indonesia, then worldwide.
- According to a white paper that was released along with the announcement, WhatsApp messages are encrypted with the Signal Protocol.
- According to Globes, already by 2013 the application was installed on 92% of all smartphones, with 86% of users reporting daily use.
- When a user sends a message, it is stored on a WhatsApp server, which tries to forward it to the addressee, and repeatedly requests acknowledgement of receipt.
Further, the Cabinet Office had claimed that since many messages were not relevant to the inquiry, it only needed to hand over material it had selected as being relevant. A personal device of the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had been compromised by a security breach, and it was claimed that it could not be switched on to recover messages. At the beginning of 2022, it was revealed that San Diego–based startup Boldend had developed tools to hack WhatsApp’s encryption, gaining access to user data, at some point since the startup’s inception in 2017.
Step 5: Response Format
If you don’t already have an account with us, your first step is going to be signing up for an account (we offer a free account with 100 free searches per month). Here at SerpApi, we provide our own Bing Search API that can be easily integrated to minimize disruption to your service once the official APIs have been retired. The official Bing Search API is soon to be retired on 11th August 2025 (or has already been retired depending on when you’re reading this) and you may be searching for a suitable replacement. Learn how to transition to SerpApi’s Bing Search API to reduce disruption to your service. Both Telegram and Signal in particular were reported to get registration spikes during WhatsApp outages and controversies.
Returned in the relatedSearches.value key (array of related searches) in the official API, our API returns the equivalent in the top level related_searches key (array of related searches). When available, the estimated number of results that was previously found under webPages.totalEstimatedMatches will be available under search_information.total_results in our API. Next we’re going to authenticate via the api_key query parameter and remove the headers entirely as they’re not necessary for any calls to our endpoint.
By April 22, 2014, WhatsApp had over 500 million monthly active users, 700 million photos and 100 million videos were being shared daily, and the messaging system was handling more than 10 billion messages each day. When this multi-device feature was first introduced to Android and iOS users, it could only show messages for the last three months on the Web version, because the Web version was syncing with the phone. Similar to voice messages, this feature allows users to record and send short videos directly in a chat. In May 2017, it was reported that WhatsApp users spend over 340 million minutes on video calls each day on the app. In May 2016, some WhatsApp users were reported to have been tricked into downloading a third-party application called WhatsApp Gold, which was part of a scam that infected the users’ phones with malware. Since the complete roll out of this feature, users cannot check old messages before this period on the Web version anymore.
The acquisition was influenced by the data provided by Onavo, Facebook’s research app for monitoring competitors and trending usage of social activities on mobile phones, as well as startups that were performing “unusually well”. Days after the announcement, WhatsApp users experienced a loss of service, leading to anger across social media. Some time in 2013 WhatsApp acquired Santa Clara–based startup SkyMobius, the developers of Vtok, a video and voice calling app. By February 2013, WhatsApp had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members. To cover the cost of sending verification texts to users, WhatsApp was changed from a free service to a paid one. This new facility, to Koum’s surprise, was used by users to ping “each other with jokey custom statuses like, ‘I woke up late’ or ‘I’m on my way.'” Fishman said, “At some point it sort of became instant messaging”.
An integer overflow bug allowed a malicious user to take full control of the victim’s application once a video call between two WhatsApp users was established. However, the company did not reveal names of the end users, which according to a research by Citizen Lab include, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. There were a series of incidents between 2017 and 2020, after which WhatsApp announced changes for Indian users of the platform that labels forwarded messages as such.
In December 2024, WhatsApp introduced a reverse image search feature, allowing users to verify image authenticity directly within the app using Google Search. In July 2021 the company was also testing multi-device support, allowing Computer users to run WhatsApp without an active phone session. In August 2013, WhatsApp added voice messages to their apps, giving users a way to send short audio recordings directly in their chats. WhatsApp has rolled out a feature called ‘Voice Status Updates’, which allows users to record voice notes and share them as their status on the app. This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp 2.0, released for iPhone in August 2009, featured a purpose-designed messaging component; the number of active users suddenly increased to 250,000.
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. In 2018, it was reported that around 500,000 National Health Service (NHS) staff used WhatsApp and other instant messaging systems at work and around 29,000 had faced disciplinary action for doing so. The researchers notified, Meta (who updated the enumeration problem in October), and deleted their copy of the phone numbers.