• Kaspersky warns of a WhatsApp phishing campaign spreading malicious VBScript files disguised as business documents
• Running them installs ManageEngine Endpoint Central, giving attackers remote access; filenames localized boosted global reach
• Victims span Brazil, India, Mexico, Singapore, UK, Spain, Taiwan, Australia, Russia, Vietnam, and Malaysia; compromise method remains unknown

WhatsApp users beware - there is a phishing campaign ongoing on the platform, seeking to infect your devices with a legitimate, but unsolicited endpoint security platform.

Security researchers Kaspersky recently published a new report detailing a campaign that starts with a compromised WhatsApp account. They could not determine how these accounts got breached but found that they were being used to reach out to the victims’ contacts and share a VBScript file masquerading as business or financial documents.

People who don’t find it strange that their contacts are suddenly sharing business documents, and end up running them, will get ManageEngine’s Endpoint Central, a unified endpoint management (UEM) and endpoint security platform built to help IT teams manage a fleet of desktops, laptops, servers, mobile devices, and other endpoints, all from a single console.

Two scripts, one malware

In this case, however, they wouldn’t be managing anything - they would just be granting remote system access to the attackers. Kaspersky says that the campaign is rather widespread, with victims located across Brazil, India, Mexico, Singapore, the UK, Spain, Taiwan, Australia, Russia, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

One of the reasons the campaign was so successful on an international level is because the filenames are localized in multiple languages, Kaspersky added.

“Based on evidence collected from multiple victims through social media reports and submitted samples, we can conclude that the threat actor had gained access to several WhatsApp accounts and used them to distribute the malicious VBScript files to contacts on the compromised users’ contact lists,” Kaspersky’s researchers said.

“At the time of writing, the exact method used to compromise these WhatsApp accounts remains unknown.”

Downloading and running the malicious files on Windows result in the deployment of two scripts that first disable UAC protections and then deploy the UEM. Kaspersky also stressed that when users open WhatsApp on the web, they must first download the files, but when they open the desktop client, the files can be executed directly via Windows Script Host.

Via BleepingComputer

• Meta launches an AI agent to handle customer messages as a first port of call
• Automation will mean only the most complex queries get routed to humans
• Its tools will connect with third parties and be available across WhatsApp, Instagram and more

Meta has finally launched its AI-powered customer support tool, Meta Business Agent, after nearly two years of testing in select markets including India and Mexico.

The tool is designed to act as a first point of contact, answering customer questions, recommending products and booking appointments.

Under Meta's new way of customer service, consumers will interact with an AI agent first before being routed to a human agent in the case of more complex queries.

Meta Business Agent now available

Though it's being made available through WhatsApp Business, Meta's tool will also be rolling out across the social media giant's other platforms, including Instagram DMs, Messenger and the Meta Business Suite.

Because it uses AI, Meta says its agent can be highly customizable to any user, reflecting things like brand voice, products and services accurately.

In the future, the company also envisions agentic AI helping across market research, product feature analysis and more.

And for the humans that remain in the loop, Meta is also planning summaries for chats that happened out of hours, daily briefings and other interaction insights.

Additionally, in an era of increased interoperability and regulatory scrutiny, Facebook's parent company says businesses will also be able to create custom agents connected to software like Shopify, Zendesk and more.

The availability of customer service tools on the platform is noteworthy, because WhatsApp now claims to have more than three billion users and 200 million businesses on its platform.

And of course, this is all happening while those existing customer support and ecommerce platforms are building their own tools, with systems like MCP serving to bridge the gap between previously disconnected systems.

This is how it starts. Someone adds the word "Plus" to a familiar service. Plus sounds like more, but somehow it's almost always a harbinger of less: less access, fewer features unless you pay. The collection of Plus-sized social media platforms — Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus, WhatsApp Plus — all cheerfully introduced this week by Meta's Head of Product Naomi Gleit, is, despite what Meta might claim, likely the first step in a short path to reduced access to the core features of these popular social media platforms.

Gleit positions the change in her Instagram video as "building value" and delivering "enhanced features that our community already loves."

The Plus-sized services are, Gleit says on Facebook, rolling out today and should offer "premium features that unlock more from our apps and our AI glasses." The only tangible change, though, may be Meta AI falling in step with many of its generative AI competitors, and adding more capacity, the ability to handle more complex requests, and "more room to create." Sure, this is fuzzy, at best, lacking details like how many daily/monthly processing tokens or even how many prompts.

In fact, there are precious few details about what any of these Plus tiers (according to Techcrunch, will cost between $2.99 and $3.99 a month in the US) might offer. This means we can only look to how other digital platforms have introduced Plus-like tiers and what it's meant for consumer access.

If we were to look at streamers, the answer is clear and not encouraging.

Virtually every streaming platform sliced up its offerings to add a more affordable but ad-stuffed tier. In the case of Amazon, it took the more draconian measure and simply converted existing Amazon Prime Video customers to the ad tier. If you wanted to return to your original ad-free experience, you pay more.

Or look at Garmin and its Connect+ service, where it seems all the best analytical features are behind the subscription curtain.

As I've written before, we're now knee deep in tech subscription service culture, where companies unveil new products where key features are only available if you're willing to pay a never-ending monthly service fee.

The concern for Meta's Plus plan is that there are countless social media and communication features we depend on that could, without notice, suddenly fall under Plus.

WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is a good example. It's a core, longtime, and laudable feature that is possibly the reason millions use it. What if encryption eventually ends up falling under WhatsApp Plus? I bet it would happen quietly, with a notice hidden in your email, or an unread WhatsApp message.

On Facebook, you could lose the ability to post more than three photos in a post, or maybe only Facebook Plus subscribers can post more than three public posts in a day.

Similarly, Instagram is ripe to shift key features like longer Reels, saving Stories, or Direct Messages under a Plus banner.

If you miss some of these features, there will be Meta One, a buy-one-get-all Plus bundle. The social media giant is only testing this idea, but it will surely be the answer to those frustrated by all they lost and looking for a more affordable way to claw it all back. So for one slightly lower price, you get it all (and probably a little more).

An upside

,Meta's Plus plan might not be all bad. I think many of us still grudgingly use Facebook because old friends are still on there, and it's the only place we get and share birthday messages. No one is thrilled with the ads or constant prompts to follow people we don't know or to join groups where we have at best a passing interest. Then there's the content itself, which is filled with AI garbage, hot takes, and misinformation.

What if Facebook Plus could be an ad-free and more curated experience? Could the premium tier ban, at your request, all AI?

If Instagram Plus were a custom-built service where you choose the feed, creating the perfect algorithm (or no algorithm at all) and pick and choose which features you want, that might be a social media platform worth paying for.

Let's get real

Unfortunately, I don't think Meta's subscription plan will ultimately work this way. As a signal, I look to Gleit's comments about Creators. For the promise of Plus or premium, they get:

• More tools
• Enhanced presence
• Automated tasks
• The ability to protect their brand.

I'm confused. Aren't all these things part of the base, free versions of Instagram and Facebook? Why would a creator suddenly have to pay to "protect their brand?"

Even if free protections remain strong, I'm sure Meta will pitch "enhanced protections" that many creators will want.

As it is, Instagram and Facebook's free versions don't do a great job of protecting identity. There are always fake versions of celebrities, and I've heard of people losing their valuable accounts and getting virtually no support from Meta when they try to reclaim them.

What's next

While we wait for details of Meta's Plus plan to emerge, I think we have to prepare for the worst. Services are an undeniably attractive business. People pay for access to their favorite platform or features, and they pay every single month. Once they're subscribed, they rarely peel off, even when you slightly raise the prices.

Just look at Apple, which long had a services business, but has grown it into a substantial multi-billion dollar piece of its revenue pie.

With billions of users around the globe, Meta's subscription business opportunity is enormous, and I'm guessing it felt it had to do this to ensure revenue growth, especially as people begin to wonder if they need to spend less time online and more time touching grass.

• WhatsApp is testing a new disappearing messages feature
• It may delete texts after they’ve been read, not just after a set timer
• The feature is being tested on both iOS and Android

If you want to be able to send a WhatsApp message to someone on your iPhone and have it disappear after they’ve read it, you’re in luck, as it looks like WhatsApp is currently testing this feature with a view to potentially launching it in the future.

That’s according to a new leak from WABetaInfo, at least. On its blog, WABetaInfo claims that WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will delete messages on iOS once they have been read. That could be a good way to protect your privacy if you don’t want certain messages to stick around.

Disappearing messages already exist in WhatsApp, but they’re a lot more limited in their current iteration. Right now, you can set messages to vanish after a specified period of time has passed: 24 hours, seven days or 90 days. However, this is something of a “brute force” option, as it doesn’t consider whether the texts have actually been read before they get deleted.

The new update changes that. It adds an “after reading” option in the message timer settings that will let you tell WhatsApp to erase your texts once the recipient has seen them, not just once a predefined timer expires. That gives you more flexibility and ensures the text receiver actually has a chance to read what you sent before it’s gone.

Gone in 60 seconds

WABetaInfo describes this change as bringing “a new layer of privacy to disappearing messages.” And while the requirement is now for users to have read the message you’ve sent them, you can still control how long WhatsApp waits after that before purging the texts, with options including five minutes, one hour or 12 hours. Messages that remain unread will disappear after 24 hours regardless of the setting you choose, though.

Interestingly, the timer for the sender and recipient do not have to be in sync with each other. WABetaInfo says that if you set the timer to five minutes, for example, the message will be removed from your own device after that period elapses. But if the person on the other end doesn’t open it for several hours, it’ll still be available on their phone. As soon as they open it, the five-minute timer begins.

WhatsApp began testing this expanded timer for disappearing messages in April 2026, but at that time it was limited to Android devices. Now, it’s expanding to iOS as well. The fact that it’s being tested on both major operating systems implies that it could be close to release.

That said, there’s no word on when this feature might become available. WABetaInfo doesn’t have any information on releasing timing and there’s no official word from WhatsApp, so we’ll have to wait and see when it arrives.

Still, this feature could be a worthwhile addition, whether you already use disappearing messages and want more control or have never tried them but are curious about how they can protect your privacy. Stay tuned for more information on an official launch date.

• The FBI has managed to retrieve Signal messages from someone's phone, even with the app deleted
• There's a setting you can enable to prevent this from being possible
• In other messaging app news, Telegram's founder has called WhatsApp's encryption "the biggest consumer fraud in history"

If you care about privacy, then there’s a good chance you already use Signal for messaging, and you might have assumed that this was enough to keep your messages private. But the FBI has just shown that’s not the case.

As reported by 404 Media, the FBI was able to retrieve Signal messages from someone’s iPhone, even though the person had deleted the app. Given that Signal messages have end-to-end encryption, you’d probably assume that the only way someone could read them was with access to the sender or recipient’s Signal account, which isn’t what happened here.

Instead, the FBI was able to access incoming Signal messages via the iPhone’s push notification database, which still received incoming Signal messages despite the app’s removal. They weren’t able to access messages sent by the defendant, but they still had access to the other side of conversations.

Fortunately, there is a way to prevent this from happening, as Signal has a toggle that stops content from appearing in notifications. To enable this, open the app and head to Settings > Notifications > Notification Content, and then select either ‘No Name or Content’ for maximum privacy, or ‘No Content’ if you’re happy for the sender’s name to be retrievable.

Of course, this also means your Signal notifications will cease to show message content and potentially the sender’s name too, which could be inconvenient, so you’ve got to weigh up how much security you think you need.

It’s also worth noting that this vulnerability presumably isn’t exclusive to Signal, so you might want to turn off similar settings in other apps where possible.

Is WhatsApp's encryption a fraud?

And this isn’t the only news about security issues with messaging apps today, as Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov has posted on X that “WhatsApp’s ‘encryption’ may be the biggest consumer fraud in history,” citing a lawsuit that claims a backdoor allows WhatsApp and Meta employees along with third-parties to “circumvent encryption in order to view users’ private messages.”

It’s a troubling claim, but it’s one that WhatsApp has rejected, calling it “categorically false and absurd.” So, for now, it’s unclear whether WhatsApp’s encryption is secure or not, but given that it has been called into question, you might want to consider an alternative such as Signal if you’re not already using that.

Telegram itself is another possible alternative, though that’s had its own security issues, with, for example, a flaw recently being found that can expose user IP addresses.

• WhatsApp is now letting some users set up usernames
• So far, this feature is only available to a limited number of beta users
• With it, you can share your username rather than your phone number

We’ve been hearing that WhatsApp will be getting usernames for a while now, and they’ve finally arrived — though so far, they're only in the latest beta versions of WhatsApp, and only for a “limited” number of users in a phased rollout, according to WABetaInfo.

In other words, you need to be running a beta version of WhatsApp to benefit from the new feature right now, and even then, you might not get access just yet. But the very fact that usernames are in beta suggests they'll hopefully roll out more widely soon.

When you do get access to the new feature, you can head to Settings > Profile within the WhatsApp app, and from there, you’ll be able to create a username. The feature is live in both iOS and Android WhatsApp betas, and rather than creating a new username, you can choose to use your Facebook or Instagram username instead, if you prefer.

If you do create one, then there are various restrictions, including that it must be a username that isn’t currently being used by someone else on any of Meta’s platforms, that it must be at least three characters long, and that it must start with a letter — though it can also include numbers, periods, and underscores.

Other restrictions include that it can’t start with www., end with a domain, or exceed 35 characters in length.

A privacy perk

In any case, this is a feature I’ve been waiting a long time for — I’m not keen on sharing my phone number any more than necessary, so usernames allow for a bit more privacy.

And WhatsApp is also allowing you to optionally set up a four-digit ‘username key’, which anyone who wants to message you would then need to know, as well as your username, adding another layer of security and privacy.

This is all good news, though the other potential advantage of a username — that being the ability to use a messaging app without linking your phone number to it at all — seemingly isn’t currently possible here. You still need to link your number to WhatsApp; you just don’t need to share it with the people you message on there.

• WhatsApp has just updated its CarPlay functionality
• The app now offers a native in-car experience
• That makes hands-free calling simpler and more feature-rich

If you use WhatsApp with your vehicle’s CarPlay system, there’s some good news: Meta has just updated its messaging app with expanded support for CarPlay, and it could make the in-car experience just a little more pleasant.

To be clear, WhatsApp has technically worked with CarPlay for years. You’ve been able to send messages and make calls while driving using your voice, but the previous app relied on Siri for a lot of its features. While it worked, it was a basic, non-native solution that left a lot of room for improvement.

Thankfully, that improvement has finally arrived. The latest version introduces a native-feeling interface that makes using the app much more user-friendly. There’s a new contact menu with profile details for each person; support for your favorite contacts on a dedicated tab; and a call history log that shows whether calls were incoming or outgoing.

The update was in testing over the past week or so, giving users a hint of what was to come. Now that it’s arrived, you’ll be able to get the CarPlay improvements by updating WhatsApp in the iOS App Store.

Calling on the go

The new CarPlay-friendly version of WhatsApp is just the latest tune-up that’s arrived for Apple’s in-car entertainment and navigation system. Indeed, several prominent apps have brought new features to their CarPlay integrations over the past few weeks.

Perhaps most notable among them is ChatGPT. You can now interact with the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot right within your car, but it’s worth noting that you’ll only be able to do so in voice mode so as to prevent distractions while driving. It’s also a bit of a weird experience.

Still, other apps have been adding new features to CarPlay, with Google Meet among them. Like WhatsApp, this has added an upgraded way to conduct calls on the go and also displays your upcoming schedule if required.

So, if your car is outfitted with CarPlay, contacting your friends and family just got a little easier. Hopefully the updates to WhatsApp, ChatGPT and more will inspire other compatible apps to improve their offerings for Apple fans in the not-too-distant future.

• WhatsApp files deliver VBS malware that silently installs and gains full control
• Hidden folders and renamed Windows tools let attackers blend into normal operations
• Malware retrieves secondary scripts from trusted cloud services to avoid detection

Microsoft has identified a multi-stage malware campaign that uses WhatsApp to deliver Visual Basic Script (VBS) files and exploits the trust users place in familiar messaging platforms.

Attackers send files that appear harmless through WhatsApp, but opening them triggers a silent installation that grants hidden system control to adversaries.

Once executed, the scripts create concealed folders under C:\ProgramData and drop renamed versions of legitimate Windows utilities, such as curl.exe renamed to netapi.dll and bitsadmin.exe renamed to sc.exe.

Attackers hide malware inside normal system tools

By embedding these tools in normal system paths, attackers ensure the tools blend into routine operations while security solutions can still detect the original metadata.

The malware alters system settings to launch automatically after every reboot, ensuring survival even when users believe they removed the threat.

Microsoft warns that this approach combines social engineering with living-off-the-land techniques and increases successful execution without raising immediate alerts.

“By combining trusted platforms with legitimate tools, the threat actor reduces visibility and increases the likelihood of successful execution,” Microsoft said in a blog post.

After the initial infection, the malware retrieves secondary payloads from cloud services, including AWS S3, Tencent Cloud, and Backblaze B2.

These droppers, delivered as auxs.vbs and WinUpdate_KB5034231.vbs, exploit trusted cloud infrastructure and disguise malicious downloads as legitimate network traffic.

The malware also modifies User Account Control settings and repeatedly attempts to run cmd.exe with elevated privileges until it succeeds.

The malware alters registry entries under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Win to suppress UAC prompts and grant administrative rights without user awareness.

In the final stage, attackers deploy malicious Microsoft Installer (MSI) files such as Setup.msi, WinRAR.msi, LinkPoint.msi, and AnyDesk.msi onto compromised systems.

These unsigned installers give attackers persistent remote access and enable data theft, additional malware deployment, or integration of infected machines into botnets.

Microsoft recommends monitoring repeated tampering with UAC and registry modifications as key indicators of compromise.

Organizations should restrict execution of script hosts, monitor renamed system utilities, and educate users about social engineering tactics.

Microsoft emphasizes the importance of cloud-delivered protection, tamper protection, and endpoint detection and response operating in block mode.

Security teams must monitor cloud traffic closely, as conventional detection methods may struggle to distinguish these operations from routine enterprise activity.

AI tools can help analyze behavioral anomalies, correlate telemetry, and identify suspicious WhatsApp attachments.

Failing to exercise caution can result in permanent data loss, as attackers gain full device control and access to sensitive personal information.

Microsoft stresses that even a single careless click could allow this malware to bypass ordinary endpoint protections.

• A native WhatsApp app is being tested for CarPlay
• The beta version is available now
• It includes a visual interface with access to contacts, call history, and more

If you use both WhatsApp and CarPlay then you’re probably aware that the former is currently limited on the latter. There’s no native app, so you have to use Siri to perform tasks, and it lacks a visual interface. But that’s about to change.

As reported by WABetaInfo, there’s now a native WhatsApp app available for CarPlay, but only in beta so far.

This app lets you see your chat list, and you can optionally filter it to show just conversations with unread messages. You can tap on a chat to send a new message, or tap on ‘New Message’ to send one to anyone in your address book.

You can message and call but not read

The app supports both light and dark modes, and you can also see call history, contacts that you’ve marked as favorites, and a screen showing your main profile details, and, of course, you can start calls with the app too. What you can’t do is open a conversation to read all the messages in it, as that wouldn’t be safe while driving.

This being a beta version, it’s possible that some features may be added or removed before the final release, but since these are mostly core features, we’d expect them to largely remain intact.

You can grab the beta via the TestFlight app, but note that it might be a little buggy, so you may prefer to wait for the finished version, which will hopefully be along soon, and which will be available on the App Store once it lands.

• FBI and CISA warn of Russian espionage campaign targeting messaging apps
• Phishing and social engineering used to hijack Signal and other CMA accounts
• Thousands of victims’ accounts compromised, including officials, military, and journalists

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are warning about an ongoing espionage campaign by Russian cyberspies.

In a joint Public Service Announcement (PSA) published late last week, the two agencies said Russian Intelligence Services (RIS)-affiliated threat actors are actively targeting commercial messaging applications (CMA). They specifically mentioned Signal, but stressed that other CMAs are most likely targeted, as well.

The victims are mostly current and former US government officials, military personnel, political figures, and journalists.

Following the Dutch

The campaign does not revolve around “breaking” the apps by abusing vulnerabilities, or similar. Instead, it revolves around phishing and social engineering, where the victims end up sharing access willingly.

“RIS cyber actors send phishing messages masquerading as automated CMA support accounts,” the PSA reads. “The actors tailor the messages to deceive targets into taking an action, such as clicking a link or providing verification codes or account PINs. If the user performs any of the requested actions, they unwittingly provide the actors with unauthorized access to their account either by adding the attacker's device as a linked device or through a full account takeover.”

Roughly two weeks ago, Dutch authorities published a similar warning, saying that Russian spies were targeting not only Signal, but WhatsApp, as well. The General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), the Netherlands’ primary civilian intelligence and security agency, said at the time that the campaign was “large-scale”, and “global”. Targets were dignitaries, military personnel, and civil servants, including Dutch government employees.

AIVD believes the campaign is already a success: “The Russian hackers likely gained access to sensitive information through this campaign,” it said, although it did not detail if they accessed it from Dutch targets or someone else entirely.

On X, FBI Director Kash Patel echoed these warnings, saying the effort “resulted in unauthorized access to thousands of individual accounts.”

“After gaining access, the actors can view messages and contact lists, send messages as the victim, and conduct additional phishing from a trusted identity,” he warned.

Via The Hacker News

• Garmin and Meta have revealed a WhatsApp integration for 'select' Garmin watches
• The app, available on the Garmin Connect IQ store, allows users to see up to 10 messages, incoming calls, reply with a built-in keyboard, and react to incoming messages
• Previously, users could see but not interact with messages via Garmin's notifications functionality

Garmin and Meta have launched a WhatsApp app for 'select' Garmin watches, available on the Garmin Connect IQ store. The app allows users to see a history of up to 10 messages per chat on a Garmin watch, react to incoming messages, and reply using a built-in keyboard.

Those keyboards are tiny, but presumably, we might also be able to use the voice assistant functionality on some of the best Garmin watches to respond via the keyboard too, just like a smartphone – but neither Garmin nor Meta has confirmed this is the case just yet.

The app also allows you to see incoming calls with the option to decline them.

Nikhil Joshi, Director of Product Management at Meta, said in a press release that "WhatsApp helps people stay connected no matter what platform they use. We’re proud to bring WhatsApp to Garmin smartwatches, so that more people can keep their private conversations going right from their wrist.”

This collaboration isn't particularly surprising: Garmin has slowly been moving away from its roots as a company that makes GPS-first specialist training tools and more towards lifestyle smartwatches, to compete with the likes of the best Apple Watch models.

People want brighter, less efficient AMOLED screens rather than duller MIP ones, watches which allow you to take calls like the Garmin Forerunner 970, and the ability to message people back from their wrists.

However, one potential sticking point is the lack of LTE on most Garmin watches, forcing you to remain tethered to your phone to use the app. While it's still convenient — you're able to reply to messages without reaching into your pocket or bag — Garmin watches don't act like a phone-in-miniature in the same way LTE-enabled models from Apple and Samsung do.

If you're looking to download the new integration, here's the list of compatible Garmin smartwatches, according to the Connect IQ store:

• Garmin D2 Air X15
• Garmin Enduro 3
• Garmin fēnix 8 Pro
• Garmin fēnix 8
• Garmin fēnix E
• Garmin Forerunner 570
• Garmin Forerunner 970
• Garmin tactix 8
• Garmin Venu 4
• Garmin Venu X1
• Garmin vívoactive 6

The list isn't terribly long: no Instinct series, older Forerunners, or any of the best golf watches, such as the Garmin Approach S70.

Garmin continues its recent mission to drive more people to its frankly underused Connect IQ store, with this new WhatsApp integration following on from last week's collaboration with the Pokémon Sleep app. Here's what happened when I tried one of the new Pokémon watch faces for a couple of days, and how it ended up fixing my sleep via emotional blackmail.

• Dutch intelligence warns of Russian cyber-espionage efforts
• Hackers target Signal and WhatsApp via social engineering
• Campaign likely already yielded sensitive information

The General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), the Netherlands’ primary civilian intelligence and security agency, has warned of a major ongoing cyber-espionage campaign by Russian spies.

In a security advisory, AIVD said it had seen Russian state-sponsored hackers engaging in a “large-scale global cyber campaign” targeting dignitaries, military personnel, and civil servants, including Dutch government employees.

Other high-value individuals, such as journalists could also be targeted, it was said.

Intel already taken

The strategy is social engineering, and the goal is to gain access to their targets’ Signal and WhatsApp accounts.

Instead of looking for software vulnerabilities, the crooks are trying to persuade their victims into sharing security verification- and pincodes. The two most common approaches are either to spoof the Signal Support chatbot, or to try and take advantage of the “linked devices” function.

This function lets multiple devices be connected to the same account, allowing the spies to read the conversations without alerting the victims in any way.

AIVD believes the campaign is already a success: “The Russian hackers likely gained access to sensitive information through this campaign,” it said, although it did not detail if they accessed it from Dutch targets or someone else entirely.

In the advisory, AIVD also says the Russians are most likely interested in Signal and WhatsApp because of their good reputation.

“Signal is renowned as a reliable and independent communication channel which offers end-to-end encryption. This makes it an attractive channel for use within governments wishing to protect their internal communication. It also makes it the ideal place for malicious actors to try to capture sensitive information.”

That’s why MIVD Director, vice-admiral Peter Reesink, advises against using these tools for classified, confidential, or sensitive information sharing. We would add that it would be wise not to share access to your apps with anyone, especially if you’re in a sensitive position.

Via The Register

• WhatsApp suggests using a VPN to evade network restrictions on its service
• It explicitly lists Mullvad and AmneziaVPN as "well-regarded" VPN providers
• The move comes as WhatsApp is increasingly a target of censors wordwide

For millions of users living under restrictive internet regimes, maintaining access to basic communication tools is a daily battle. In a crucial update to its support documentation, WhatsApp has begun explicitly recommending two privacy-focused services, Mullvad and Amnezia VPN, to help users stay connected when the app is blocked.

While Meta-owned platforms typically offer generic advice about using the best VPN services to navigate restrictions, naming specific third-party providers is a break from tradition.

The update appears in the platform’s Help Center under the section dedicated to connecting when the network is down or blocked, signaling a more hands-on approach to aiding users in jurisdictions with heavy internet censorship.

According to the newly updated WhatsApp FAQ, the company states: "Using a VPN can allow you to connect to WhatsApp if it is unavailable from your current network." It then goes a step further, adding: "Examples of well-regarded VPN providers include Mullvad and Amnezia."

The page also directs users to the website of digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for further reading on digital safety, reinforcing the privacy-centric nature of this advice.

Why Mullvad and Amnezia?

The selection of these two specific providers is telling. Unlike the massive commercial VPNs often seen in TV spots, both Mullvad and Amnezia occupy a more technical, privacy-hardened niche.

Mullvad VPN is a Swedish provider widely revered in the cybersecurity community for its fanatical approach to anonymity. Besides operating a strict no-log VPN, Mullvad requires no email address or personal information to sign up; users simply generate a random account number.

While privacy is Mullvad's main concern, the provider has also been beefing up its censorship resistance over the years. It even added QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connections) across all its apps recently for better unblocking.

AmneziaVPN is a Russian-based provider specifically designed to bypass harsh censorship. It's especially known for building protocols that cloak VPN traffic, making it look like regular web browsing to fool censorship firewalls.

While offering its own applications, Amenzia is an open-source solution that allows users to set up their own self-hosted VPN on a rented virtual private server (VPS), too. NymVPN and Windscribe have both integrated Amenzia's proprietary protocol, AmenziaWG, into their services, exactly for its efficiency in bypassing Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) blocking techniques.

By highlighting these two, WhatsApp is effectively pointing users toward tools designed to survive in hostile network environments, rather than just tools designed for streaming or casual browsing.

Staying connected in 2026

The context of this update cannot be ignored. With digital authoritarianism on the rise, the ability to access end-to-end encrypted messaging is no longer guaranteed.

WhatsApp is keen to remind users that using these tools does not compromise the security of their chats. The support page reiterates: "Please note that while using a VPN, WhatsApp's default end-to-end encryption keeps your personal messages and calls private... No one outside of the chat, not even WhatsApp, can read, listen to, or share them."

For users in regions where WhatsApp is frequently throttled or blocked, this official acknowledgement of specific secure VPN tools validates what many activists and tech-savvy users have known for years: in 2026, a VPN is not just an accessory; it is essential infrastructure.

If you are currently looking for a way to secure your connection, these "well-regarded" options are a strong place to start, but they aren't your only options. For other secure and reliable alternatives, I suggest checking our guides to the best free VPN and best VPN services overall.

• A spoiler protection feature for WhatsApp is in the works
• It's been spotted in the beta release for iOS and Android now
• There's a similar feature already in place threads on Reddit

WhatsApp is known for pushing out new upgrades at a steady clip, and there's a feature in the works that could potentially help you avoid spoilers from friends and family members for the big shows of the moment.

As spotted by WABetaInfo (via 9to5Mac), the latest beta version of WhatsApp for iOS comes with a spoiler format option, which means text wouldn't be revealed to recipients until it had been specifically tapped on in a message.

It would work in a similar way to the spoiler formatting option currently available on Reddit: when you open up a post, spoiler text is concealed, and then you need to click on it to see the message underneath.

This would mean you could carry on chatting with contacts without worrying about seeing information on the latest plot twists on Bridgerton or Industry. The same feature has already turned up in beta versions of WHatsApp for Android.

Coming soon

The new feature, assuming it does eventually roll out, would be particularly useful in group chats – where some participants might be caught up with the latest happenings in the best shows on streaming platforms and others might not.

It's not clear how long it will take for this spoiler protection feature to make it out of beta and into the official app, but it's an upgrade that makes a lot of sense – and which should end up getting a lot of use in WhatsApp conversations.

At the moment, spoiler tags can't be applied to images and videos, but the team at WABetaInfo speculates that this might come too, eventually – meaning you'd be even better protected against revelations you don't want to see.

Only yesterday, WhatsApp began rolling out another upgrade for group chats, enabling new arrivals in these conversations to see a selected amount of the group history – saving the same information from being reposted again and again.

WhatsApp has had a small but useful feature for a couple of years now, and it’s one that you may well not know about, but will likely use a lot once you learn about it.

If you haven’t guessed from the title of this article, the feature in question is HD photos and videos, so in other words the ability to send photos and videos in HD quality.

For photos, that means 4096 x 2692, rather than the 1600 x 1052 resolution offered by standard quality, and for videos, you’re getting 720p rather than 480p — so if you’re shooting 1080p or 4K videos then this still isn’t full quality, but it’s a definite upgrade.

Below, we’ll explain how to do this, both for individual files and as a persistent setting.

How to send HD photos and videos on WhatsApp

To send an HD photo or video on WhatsApp, first open the chat that you want to send the file to, then if you’re taking a new photo or video, hit the camera icon. Then take the photo or shoot the video and tap the ‘HD’ icon. Doing this will then let you choose between standard and HD quality.

If you want to attach an existing photo or video, then on iOS tap the ‘+’ icon followed by ‘Photos’, while on Android you’d want to tap the paperclip icon followed by ‘Gallery’.

In either case, you should then select any photos or videos that you want to send, then tap the ‘HD’ icon, and tap the send button.

Note that if you’re using mobile data then it might ask you to confirm that you want to continue sending HD media without Wi-Fi, in which case just tap ‘Continue’.

How to set HD quality as the default

The above approach lets you choose whether to send photos and videos in HD each time you send one, but if you just want to default to HD, that’s an option too. For that, just do the following:

• 1. Open WhatsApp and tap the ‘Settings’ tab
• 2. Tap ‘Storage and data’
• 3. Under the ‘Media quality’ heading, tap ‘Upload quality’
• 4. Tap ‘HD quality’

How to auto-download HD photos and videos

The above covers how to send HD photos and videos, but if you want to automatically download HD versions of photos and videos that are sent to you, then there are some other settings you’ll want to tweak. For this, do the following:

• 1. Open WhatsApp and tap the ‘Settings’ tab
• 2. Tap ‘Storage and data’
• 3. Under the ‘Media quality’ heading, tap ‘Audo-download quality’
• 4. Tap ‘HD quality’

Things to bear in mind

Be aware that obviously HD files are larger, so if you’re using mobile data and don’t have an unlimited plan, you might want to stick with standard quality. Plus, HD files will take up more space on your device and in your cloud storage if they’re being backed up.

HD photos and videos also therefore take longer to send, so on a slow connection, standard quality can be preferable.

• WhatsApp is rolling out a group-chat feature called Group Message History
• It gives new group members an easier way to catch up on conversations
• Existing group members can choose to share between 25-100 previously-sent messages with new members

WhatsApp is my go-to for group chats despite me being an iPhone user with iMessage at my fingertips, but I do have my issues with the platform, and one of them is that when a new member is added to a chat they can't see previous messages — but that's about to change.

In a blog post, WhatsApp announced the launch of Group Message History, a function that gives new group members an easy way to catch up on previously sent messages. WhatsApp says it has "started rolling out Group Message History gradually".

The post says: “One of our most requested features, it’s another example of how WhatsApp is leading the way in group messaging, no matter your device. Group Message History remains end-to-end encrypted like all other personal messages, giving you a quicker, more private way to keep conversations flowing.”

When the update arrives, existing members have the option to share previously-sent messages with new members when adding them to a group chat, although admins can choose to restrict this capability to themselves.

Though new members won’t get access to the full chat history, members will have the option to share the last 25-100 messages in a chat with them, which should be enough to bring new joiners up to speed. It’s a slight catch, but one that WhatsApp has implemented for privacy reasons.

With that in mind, if you forget to do this when adding new members to a conversation, you won’t be able to share messages with them after you’ve added them, meaning you’ll need to remove them and add them again to share messages.

Once you’ve shared your selected messages with a new member, WhatsApp will notify existing chat members when message history has been shared, including timestamps and sender information which is displayed differently from standard messages.

Until now, new group chat members have never been able to view the full conversation that happened prior to being added which, from my experience, only makes understanding group context even more difficult.

This means the group admin, or other members, would have to rely on forwarding messages or taking screenshots to give new members some context — resulting in a massive build-up in your camera roll.

There's no doubt this will lift a huge weight off serial group-chatters, myself included, and it also gives WhatsApp the upper hand over its messaging rivals. Though Telegram has a similar message history-sharing tool, it’s all or nothing, so you can’t select the amount of messages you share with new members. As for Apple’s iMessage, no such feature exists.

WhatsApp is one of the best encrypted messaging apps in the world, and with features like end-to-end encryption, video notes, voice messages and more, it’s easy to see why it reportedly has around three billion monthly active users.

Despite its popularity, though, you might not be aware of some of the little-known features buried in WhatsApp’s settings. Take a few minutes to investigate and you could level up your WhatsApp experience with just a few taps.

Here, we’ll show you seven of the best hidden WhatsApp settings that can transform the app for the better. Enable them and you’ll never use WhatsApp in the same way again.

Chat from your computer

Sometimes, using WhatsApp on your phone isn’t the most convenient option. Whether you want to text from a computer or send messages from a different phone, there’s a way to do that in WhatsApp. First, open the app on your second device. If you’ve not yet linked it to your mobile account, you should see a QR code.

Now open WhatsApp on your mobile device and tap the Settings button in the bottom toolbar, then select Linked devices > Link a device. Move your phone/camera screen over the QR code on your other device – WhatsApp should now link your account on both devices, allowing you to sync and send messages between them.

Silence unknown callers

If you’re plagued by unknown callers contacting you on WhatsApp, there’s a simple way to shut them out: go to Settings > Privacy > Calls and enable the toggle next to Silence unknown callers. This should put an end to the interruptions and allow you to use the app in peace.

The good news is that this setting doesn’t entirely hide unknown callers from you – it merely prevents calls from unknown numbers from ringing when they come through. Instead, you’ll find details about the missed calls in both the Calls tab and your list of notifications, where you can review what you missed and decide if you want to contact the caller.

Secure your account

Your WhatsApp account contains all manner of important messages sent to friends, family and more, and most people would be devastated if they lost access to them. To prevent that from happening and secure your texts from other people who might want to interfere with them, it’s a good idea to set up a passkey and two-step verification.

To do so, go to Settings > Account and first tap Passkeys, then follow the on-screen instructions to create your first one. Passkeys let you sign in using biometric data – such as your fingerprint or a face scan – instead of a password, and that makes them far more secure as they cannot be hacked or phished.

Once you’ve set up a passkey, go back to the account page and tap Two-step verification, then follow the instructions. This lets you confirm your WhatsApp login using a second source, such as one of your email addresses. It’s a good buffer against an attacker who has your login password.

Lock things down

Another handy way to keep your messages safely protected is to use the App lock feature. This prevents anyone from using WhatsApp without first verifying their identity with biometric authentication, which is a solid way of preventing unauthorized people from reading your texts. Just go to Settings > Privacy > App lock, then pick a security method (such as Face ID on an iPhone).

That’s complemented by the Chat lock feature. Unlike App lock, Chat lock is used to secure individual chats rather than the entire app. Any locked chats are kept in the Locked Chats folder and require authentication, such as a fingerprint or device passcode, in order to be viewed.

You can enable this feature in Settings > Privacy > Chat lock. You’ll find your locked chats by going to the Chats tab and swiping down, then tapping Locked chats. This folder can be hidden by tapping Locked chats > Settings > Hide locked chats. Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to enter the Locked chats secret code (created under Locked chats > Settings > Secret code) into the app’s search bar in order to unlock everything.

Hide message previews

WhatsApp has an additional privacy and security feature in the form of message previews. If you don’t like people looking over your shoulder and seeing the contents of new messages revealed in your WhatsApp notifications, you can disable that in the app’s settings.

Just go to Settings > Notifications and scroll down to Show preview, then disable the toggle on the right-hand side. Now, new message notifications from WhatsApp will simply inform you that a person has texted you – your device will need to be unlocked in order to display the message’s contents on your phone’s home screen, which should keep nosy neighbors at bay.

Manage your storage

Using WhatsApp – especially when you send large photos and videos back and forth – can quickly fill up your device’s storage. Thankfully, there are some quick ways to put things right.

Open WhatsApp’s Settings tab and head to Storage and data > Manage storage. Here, you can see and delete any large files that are taking up significant space on your device. It’s also worth going back to the Storage and data section and adjusting the app’s media quality (both for uploads and downloads). Using HD quality will improve the images and videos you send and receive but will result in more space being eaten up.

Next, go back to Storage and data and scroll to the Media auto-download section. Here, you can set whether WhatsApp automatically downloads photos, audio, video and documents sent to you. If you’re concerned about your device’s storage, toggle all of these to Off so that received files are only downloaded manually.

Finally, go to Settings > Chats and disable the toggle next to Save to Photos. By default, WhatsApp automatically saves photos to your phone’s photos app, but this is a quick way to clog up your photo stream, particularly if you receive a lot of images. Disabling this setting ensures that your own photos are kept separate from any you’re sent in WhatsApp.

Back up your chats

We all know it’s important to back up our phones and computers, but what about our WhatsApp chats? Well, there’s an easy way to do it in the app, and you can even set it to happen on a schedule so you don’t need to lift a finger.

Note that WhatsApp’s own backup relies on you having a connected iCloud or Google account with enough storage space for your WhatsApp files. Make sure your account is connected and set up first before beginning.

Once that’s done, open WhatsApp and go to Settings > Chats > Chat backup, then tap Back up now to begin your first backup. Once that’s done, tap Auto backup and select a frequency, such as daily, weekly or monthly. You can disable automatic backups here too. On the Chat backup page, there’s also a toggle to include videos in your backups (which will take up more space).

Finally, there’s an option to secure your backups with end-to-end encryption. This will make them much more secure, but make sure you don’t forget the encryption password you set or you’ll lose access to the backups.

• Days after Telegram blocked, Russia also restricts WhatsApp and YouTube
• Censors are reportedly using a mix of DNS blocking and DPI techniques
• VPNs can bypass the blocks but circumvention tools also restricted

Telegram, WhatsApp and YouTube have all been blocked in Russia over the last three days as authorities ramp up efforts to push state-controlled alternatives.

Cybersecurity experts told TechRadar that the platforms are likely being restricted via the country's national Domain Name System (DNS). Often described as the "phonebook of the internet," the DNS helps connect web browsers to the specific websites users request.

By deleting or redirecting these domain names, the system fails to reach the required IP address, forcing users to bypass the DNS resolver via a VPN.

Cybersecurity researcher Łukasz Olejnik suggested on X that Roskomnadzor adopted this approach because it lacks the capacity to throttle Telegram, YouTube, and WhatsApp simultaneously. Instead, authorities "completely blocked the easier targets by removing them from DNS." he wrote.

Sarkis Darbinyan, a Russian cyber lawyer and RKS Global expert, warned that DNS manipulation – which is relatively easy to circumvent – is just one tool in Roskomandzor's arsenal.

Speaking to TechRadar, Darbinyan also highlighted the use of "TSPU" equipment (Technical Measures for Countering Threats), which leverages Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology.

DPI provides authorities with granular insights into users' browsing activity, allowing censors to selectively drop data packets bound for targeted services. While VPNs can bypass these DPI-enabled blocks, authorities are increasingly targeting the anti-censorship tools themselves.

A push towards state-controlled apps

Darbinyan describes the latest wave of restrictions as "predictable," as authorities pursue the "progressive shutdown of all platforms beyond the Kremlin's control."

"It was clear the process would continue slowly but steadily until these platforms were fully blocked. What we misjudged, however, was the timing of the crackdown on Telegram," Darbinyan told TechRadar, noting that experts hadn't expected a full ban for at least another six months.

Telegram, the first service restricted this week, is more than just a messaging app – it's also vital tool for the Kremlin and pro-war bloggers to distribute propaganda. The ban has proven controversial internally, even drawing criticism from Russian soldiers.

According to Darbinyan, the Telegram restrictions began the same day VK announced the launch of "private channels" on MAX – a move likely designed to force Telegram’s audience toward the state-backed alternative. MAX, a state-controlled "super-app" modeled after China’s WeChat, must now be pre-installed on every smartphone and tablet sold in Russia.

Developed by VK, the app integrates messaging with government services and banking, though experts warn it possesses "enormous surveillance potential."

What's next for digital rights in Russia?

Experts monitoring Russia’s digital landscape anticipate that censorship will only intensify in the coming months. Website blocks are expected to expand to more services as authorities tighten their grip ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for September.

As TechRadar previously reported, Russia has entered an aggressive new phase in its battle against VPNs. To support this, Roskomnadzor is set to allocate 2.27 billion rubles (~$29 million) to develop an AI-powered filtering system. This is designed to automate the detection and blocking of both prohibited content and encrypted VPN connections.

Darbinyan believes this is just the start of a total consolidation of the national internet. He told TechRadar that he expects any service that "does not store user data locally, and does not cooperate with the Russian security services" will be blocked within the next couple of years.

Whether you understandably want to uncouple from Meta or you have beef with WhatsApp itself, there are lots of alternative messaging apps you could use instead.

Many of these have a similar feature set to WhatsApp, but they do enough different and in some cases better that they’re worth considering as alternatives.

So below, in no particular order, we’ve listed five great WhatsApp alternatives that are available on Android.

1. Signal

Signal is a major alternative to WhatsApp, and it’s probably the app you should be using if security and privacy are among your main concerns.

All of your messages on Signal are end-to-end encrypted, with even Signal itself unable to read them, and it additionally has tools like disappearing messages.

Beyond the privacy side, Signal also allows for group chats, voice and video calls, stories, and the sharing of images, GIFS, stickers, and files.

As with WhatsApp and the rest of the apps on this list, it uses your phone’s data connection rather than SMS or minutes, and while you have to sign up with your phone number you can optionally create a username which you can share with others, so they don’t need to know your number to message you.

2. Telegram

Telegram is another major alternative to WhatsApp, and as with Signal you can share a username with contacts rather than your phone number.

It’s also fairly secure, but you only get full end-to-end encryption with ‘Secret Chats’, so this isn’t a feature that’s enabled by default.

But Telegram does have a whole lot of features, including superb cross-device syncing, right down to being able to start typing a message on one device (such as your phone) and finish it on another (such as your computer).

It also claims to be the fastest messaging app on the market, and while we can’t independently verify that, it certainly seems speedy.

You get all the standard messaging app features too, including group chats, video and voice calls, stickers, GIFs, multiple themes to choose between, and more.

3. Line

Line is huge in Japan and some other parts of Asia, but despite being available outside those regions and in English, it never quite seemed to take off elsewhere.

That’s a shame, because this WhatsApp alternative has a lot going for it, especially on the customization side, with a huge number of themes and stickers being available – though not all for free.

That theming is perhaps the biggest differentiation Line has from the likes of WhatsApp and Telegram, both of which are far more limited on that front.

However, you can also do all the basics here too, with voice calls, video calls, multi-platform support, and even end-to-end encryption.

And unlike most of the apps on this list, there’s no need for a phone number to set up your Line account in most regions.

4. Viber

Viber is a highly rated WhatsApp alternative with over a billion downloads on Google Play, so it’s certainly popular.

With end-to-end encryption, disappearing messages, group chats, audio and video calls, GIFs, stickers, channels, multi-platform support, and even AI bots that can answer questions and create images, this basically ticks all the boxes you could ask a messaging app to.

You can even make notes and set reminders, which isn’t a feature found in most messaging apps.

So if you’re looking for a full-featured WhatsApp alternative, Viber is a strong option.

5. Threema

Threema bills itself as putting privacy first, so it’s more directly competing with Signal than the other apps on this list.

It’s end-to-end encrypted by default, and as with Line there’s no need for a phone number, even to sign up. In fact, you don’t even need to use an email address. Instead, you’ll get a randomly generated Threema ID, to further protect your privacy.

You can also edit and delete messages after sending them, there are no ads, trackers, or data collection, and there’s the option to verify contacts by scanning their QR code, so you can be sure of who you’re talking to.

Beyond all that, Threema also has voice, video, and group chats, the ability to create polls, location sharing, both light and dark modes, and a desktop app, among other things. Beyond its privacy and security tools it’s perhaps not as full-featured as Viber or as customizable as Line, but it certainly has the essentials covered.

WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging app, with more than three billion active users. From its humble beginnings as a cross-platform messaging service, WhatsApp has grown to offer video calls, image and location sharing, and even acts as a host for Meta AI.

However, just because WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app doesn’t mean it’s everyone’s cup of tea – users might be pushed away by its archaic login process, lack of multi-account support, or indeed just its overall vibe.

Luckily, there are plenty of alternatives out there. Below you’ll find a list of the best WhatsApp replacements for Android users, all of which are free to use (though some have additional premium features for those willing to pay up).

We’ve included some usual suspects in our list, like Google Messages and Discord, as well as some lesser-known options like Signal and Beeper. If you’re looking to skip installing WhatsApp on your Android phone, there’ll be an option for you here.

Google Messages

Google Messages has the advantage of being pre-installed on nearly every Android phone, and uses the same Google account system that Android relies on, meaning it can feel like the most natural choice for Android users.

Google has steadily increased the functionality of the Messages app over time, and it’s now one of the most richly featured messaging services on the market.

Like WhatsApp, Google Messages relies on your phone number to send and receive texts, but because your messages and contacts can be linked to your Google account, transferring between devices is much easier.

Though Google Messages is an Android exclusive, you can chat with users on other platforms without issue thanks to RCS support.

Discord

Discord has long been the messaging and calling app of choice for gamers because of its integration with Steam, PlayStation, and other platforms, but it’s also a very powerful communication app that shines when it comes to group chats and communities.

Though not quite as simple or intuitive as other messaging apps on this list, Discord’s killer feature is its server system, which allows for the creation of topic-focused channels within a broader group.

That makes it a great choice for organising large trips, creative projects, or creating communities around your favorite TV shows, music, or games.

Discord is also a solid choice for simple one-on-one calls and messages, and uses a friend list system similar to traditional social media rather than phone numbers. The Discord Nitro subscription service adds HD video streaming, larger file uploads, and a plethora of cosmetic upgrades.

Signal

Open-source messaging app Signal puts all of its focus on privacy. Like WhatsApp, all conversations on Signal are end-to-end encrypted, meaning nobody but you and the recipient can read them.

Messages can also be set to self-destruct, and local backups are switched off by default, making it easy to manage your footprint for sensitive conversations.

Being open-source means that anyone can have a look at how the code powering Signal works, which keeps things transparent and would, in theory, expose any backdoors should they be implemented.

Session

For an even more confidential messaging experience, Session has got you covered. Session uses a decentralized blockchain network to transmit individual and group messages, all of which are end-to-end encrypted. The app also offers encrypted calls via the same network.

What’s more, Session does not require a phone number or email address to use. The app instead assigns each user a unique 66-character code. That’s more anonymity than any other app on this list can claim to offer.

Session also has a no-logging policy, which means it doesn’t track your IP address or other data. For users who put privacy at the heart of their digital experience, Session is a lesser-known but powerful option.

Session Pro is currently in beta, and allows higher character limits and larger group chats amongst other features.

Beeper

Unlike the other apps on this list, Beeper isn’t really its own messaging service. Instead, the app works as an aggregator for other messaging apps, including social media services like Instagram.

This is great for folks who want to keep up with friends and answer messages without the risk of getting stuck doom scrolling afterwards. It uses a clean, minimal UI, and allows you to respond via your usual social accounts.

Beeper says it uses zero-access encryption before your chats are backed up to its servers, meaning only you can see your chat histories. Still, as with any third-party client, be sure to review the permissions and access settings to be sure you’re happy with what Beeper can access.

The optional Beeper Plus subscription adds new features like chat reminders and scheduled sends, and allows management of up to 10 accounts.

Facebook Messenger

If you’re looking for a Meta app for your messaging needs but just don’t like WhatsApp, then Facebook Messenger is your best bet.

As its name suggests, Facebook messenger is tightly integrated with Facebook, making it a go-to pick for fans of the platform as well as its associated Facebook Marketplace service.

Messenger is a lightweight and convenient app that offers texts, calls, and file sharing – all the basic features you’d expect. Chats can also be linked to specific Facebook groups and pages, great for building and updating larger communities or making group plans.

Instagram

Another option from Meta here, and this one comes with an entire social media network attached to it. For my money, Instagram's Direct Messages section is one of the best, most richly-featured messengers on the market.

That's because Instagram has spent the last ten or so years taking the best bits of every other messaging app for itself — you can share files and photos, customize the chat with themes, create group chats, pin messages, and connect to Spotify to make sharing songs easier.

Of course, Instagram DMs are best for people who already use the platform day-to-day, as you can share posts, reels, and stories via the app's messenger. It's the one I use most often.

Let us know your Android messaging app of choice in the comments below, and be sure to check out our lists of the best Android phones if you’re thinking of picking up a new Google-powered handset.

There's always something going on at Google Messages, and after its slew of updates in 2025, the WhatsApp rival is preparing for even more upgrades in 2026 – including a group chat tool it's needed for years.

Last year, Google rolled out several handy upgrades to Messages, all of which show that it's serious about improving the standard of its messaging platform. From RCS invites to its design upgrades and its 'Delete for everyone' option, Google Messages has come a long way over the past 12 months.

However, it's not stopping there. Google knows that there's even more room for improvement, and we're expecting more changes to drop in 2026. Most of its upcoming features are still in beta testing, but we're pretty confident that it'll only be a matter of time before every Google Messages user will have access to these three practical and, let's face it, long-overdue functions.

Mentions in RCS group chats

@mention in Google Messages! from r/GoogleMessages

When it comes to chat @mentions, platforms such as WhatsApp are leaps and bounds ahead. Now, Google Messages is finally getting its own version for group chats, but it should've had it a long time ago. We first came across mentions in group chats via the Reddit post above back in November, which appears to still be in its beta testing period.

Mentions are one of the best ways to get the attention of members in a group chat, especially when they've missed a message or are deliberately ignoring your burning questions, which is more often the case. When you use the @mentions feature in a group chat, it will send that specific member a notification even if their chat notifications are disabled – so there are no excuses for not replying.

An improved long-press menu

Google Message rolling out the new context menu from r/GoogleMessages

More recently, Google Messages has given its long-press menu for texts a makeover, replacing its toolbar function with a floating menu packed with the following new options: Remix (photos only), Reply, Forward, Copy (for text), Star, Delete, Select more, Info, and Save (for photos).

Previously, most of these options were hidden away under the old toolbar, so the idea of the new long-press menu is to make these hard-to-reach functions more navigable for users. This has cropped up in the latest beta version of Google Messages for a large number of users, so we're expecting a wider rollout sometime this year.

New camera viewfinder

Another new improvement that Google Messages has rolled out is its camera and gallery viewfinder upgrade on Android, which is already available to all users in the stable version of the chat service.

Now, the camera viewfinder is a lot shorter than before, allowing more display room for your photos in the gallery interface (you can now view two full rows of images). You can still swipe up on the gallery view to access your full photo library, so that's not going anywhere.

• WhatsApp is rolling out three new tools to help you spruce up your group chats
• Member tags allow you to assign roles to chat members and offer more context within a group, while event reminders are useful for organizing social gatherings
• You'll also be able to turn any word into a funky sticker with the new text sticker tool

Meta is rolling out the first WhatsApp upgrades of 2026, with three new tools designed to help you keep group chats organized and make group messaging more fun.

The platform unveiled via its blog that users will now have access to three new features: member tags, text stickers, and event reminders, which WhatsApp says are designed to “make staying connected and expressing yourself in group chats even better”, with member tags being the standout.

Do you use group chats in WhatsApp to manage a sports team? Or frequently organize social gatherings that require different roles? Member tags give more context to your group chats, allowing you to assign yourself a role so other members know who you are and what you do.

For example, you could give yourself the tag ‘Coach’ or ‘Goalkeeper’ in a sports team group chat, or ‘Dad’ in another. Your tags can be customized for each group you’re in, so you’re not restricted to one tag for every chat you’re a part of.

The second handy feature is event reminders, designed to make it easier to organize social gatherings and herd your invitees. With event reminders, you can create events to send to your friends so that everyone has access to event details in one place, in addition to setting custom reminders that “help(s) everyone remember to commute to the party” or join a pre-scheduled group chat at the right time.

Those are the practical features – now for the fun stuff. As well as member tags and event reminders, WhatsApp will now allow you to send text stickers to really make your group chats pop. You can turn any word into a colorful graphic by typing your text into the Sticker Search, and add newly-created ones to your sticker pack for easy access.

With these fresh group chat functions, WhatsApp is keeping the ball rolling from last year’s slew of new tools. In September, WhatsApp announced five new messaging upgrades, including a handful of AI tools and the ability to share live photos to your contacts, while one of last year’s most notable upgrades was the launch of WhatsApp on Apple Watches – a long=overdue integration we’ve been waiting patiently for.

• Malicious NPM package lotusbail hijacks WhatsApp accounts, stealing tokens, messages, and contacts
• Attackers link their device via WhatsApp pairing, persisting even after package removal
• Package had 56,000+ downloads before discovery; developers urged to verify sources carefully

Node Package Manager (NPM) registry users are being targeted with malware that takes over their WhatsApp accounts, steals messages, and contacts lists, experts have warned.

Cybersecurity researchers Koi Security recently discovered a fork of the popular WhiskeySockets Baileys project, an open source TypeScript/JavaScript library that provides a WebSocket-based API for interacting with the WhatsApp Web protocol, letting developers programmatically connect to WhatsApp as a companion device.

The malicious fork, named ‘lotusbail’ has all the same functionality as the legitimate project, but it also steals WhatsApp authentication tokens and session keys. Furthermore, it intercepts and records all messages, pulls contacts, media files, and all other documents, to a third-party server.

Taking over WhatsApp accounts

"The package wraps the legitimate WebSocket client that communicates with WhatsApp. Every message that flows through your application passes through the malware's socket wrapper first," Koi Security said in its report.

"When you authenticate, the wrapper captures your credentials. When messages arrive, it intercepts them. When you send messages, it records them."

But perhaps most alarmingly, the package links the attacker’s device with the victim’s WhatsApp account through the app’s pairing feature. That means that even if the victim removes the malicious NPM package, their WhatsApp account remains compromised until the link is manually disconnected.

The malware was sitting on npm for at least half a year, and during that time it amassed more than 56,000 downloads.

NPM is one of the world’s most popular public online registries hosting JavaScript packages published via npm. It allows developers to discover, download, and manage open source and private packages used in Node.js and JavaScript projects.

As such, it is constantly bombarded with all sorts of scams and hack attacks, from forked projects to typosquatted ones. To stay safe, devs are advised to be extra careful when downloading and running anything, even projects with thousands of downloads.

• Hackers can hijack WhatsApp accounts without ever cracking passwords or encryption
• GhostPairing attacks exploit legitimate device-linking features to gain full account access
• Users are tricked by fake Facebook login pages into authorizing attackers

Security researchers are warning WhatsApp users about a growing account hijacking technique that does not rely on breaking passwords or bypassing encryption.

Attackers exploit WhatsApp’s legitimate device-linking feature to quietly attach their own browser to a victim’s account.

Once linked, the attacker can read messages in real time, download shared media, and send messages that appear to come directly from the victim.

How the linking feature is abused

The attack, tracked under the name GhostPairing, begins with a short message that appears to come from a trusted contact.

The message typically contains a link claiming to show a photo of the recipient.

To build credibility, the link preview often resembles Facebook content.

Clicking the link redirects the victim to a fake Facebook login page hosted on a lookalike domain.

Instead of verifying anything, the page initiates WhatsApp’s device-pairing workflow.

Victims are prompted to enter their phone number on the fake page, which allows the attacker to trigger a legitimate pairing request.

WhatsApp then generates a pairing code, which the attacker displays on the fraudulent site.

The victim is instructed to enter this code inside WhatsApp, unknowingly authorizing a new linked device.

Although WhatsApp clearly states that a device is being added, researchers say many users overlook or misunderstand the message during the process.

Once the pairing is complete, attackers gain full access to the account without needing authentication credentials.

Gen Digital warns that many victims remain unaware that an additional device has been linked in the background.

This allows criminals to monitor conversations, collect sensitive information, impersonate the victim, and spread the same lure to contacts and group chats.

Researchers have previously observed similar device-linking abuse in attacks against other messaging platforms.

The only reliable way to detect this type of compromise is by manually checking the Linked Devices section within WhatsApp settings.

If the user does not recognize any listed device, it should be promptly removed from the account.

Users are also advised to report suspicious messages and enable additional account protections, including two-factor authentication.

Tools such as antivirus software may help flag malicious websites, while malware removal solutions can assist if further compromise is suspected.

Identity theft protection services may reduce harm after personal data exposure, although they do not prevent account hijacking itself.

This exploitation shows that user awareness remains a critical weak point, even when platforms provide warnings during sensitive actions.

Via Bleeping Computer

• A new WhatsApp scam called 'GhostPairing' has been discovered
• This tricks users into giving a criminal access to their account
• The attacker can then commit identity theft and scam others

There’s no shortage of ways that hackers and other criminals will attempt to gain access to online accounts, but now another has just been discovered, and this specifically relates to WhatsApp.

Gen Digital (via Bleeping Computer) has discovered a WhatsApp account takeover approach that it’s dubbing ‘GhostPairing’ – and when a criminal successfully carries this out, it gives them full access to your WhatsApp account, potentially without you even realizing. So it’s worth knowing what to look out for.

The attempt starts by the victim being sent a message from one of their contacts, generally saying something like “Hey, I just found your photo”, followed by a link. That link will appear with a Facebook-like preview, as you can see in the image below, but the link itself won’t actually take you to Facebook.

Instead, it will take you to a page hosted by the criminals that’s designed to look like Facebook, and will ask you to log in to your account before you can see the content.

That process will involve providing your phone number and then either scanning a QR code or entering a numeric code into WhatsApp, but in either case, what it’s actually doing is using WhatsApp’s device linking function to link the criminal’s device to your WhatsApp account.

During this process your WhatsApp account should alert you that another device is attempting to access to your account, which will hopefully be enough of a red flag for most people, but inevitably some will miss this.

Those who do follow the steps on the fake Facebook page will give the criminal full access to their WhatsApp account from a linked device – that includes conversation histories, shared media, and of course the ability to message a user’s contacts.

With this, the attacker can attempt to impersonate a user and commit fraud or extortion, and of course they can also then play the same trick on any of the user’s contacts.

If they’re careful enough, they could even remain unnoticed in the user’s account for a long time.

Remove and prevent access

There is a way to check whether this has happened to you – just open WhatsApp and head to Settings > Linked devices, from where you’ll be able to see a list of any devices linked to your account. If there are any that you don’t recognize, you can revoke their access.

As far as avoiding falling victim to GhostPairing in the first place, you should always be wary of being sent links, even from friends and family, and especially if they include just a vague message that seems designed to motivate you to click.

Look carefully at the URLs too, since in this case they’re pretending to be Facebook but the actual URLs used are very different. And finally, if you do click a link, think twice before entering any sensitive details (or scanning a QR code) on any page it sends you to. In this case, WhatsApp will actually tell you what the code you’re entering does, so make sure to carefully read anything involved in the process too.

And while this attack is specifically for WhatsApp, similar methods have been used for other messaging apps too, so be wary whatever you’re using.

• Encrypted messaging developers may be considered hostile actors in the UK
• An independent review of national security law warns of overreach
• Encryption repeatedly targeted by UK lawmakers

Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK.

That is the stark warning from Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation and Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, in a new report on national security laws.

In his independent review of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act and the newly implemented National Security Act, Hall KC highlights the incredibly broad scope of powers granted to authorities.

He warns that developers of apps like Signal and WhatsApp could technically fall within the legal definition of "hostile activity" simply because their technology "make[s] it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor communications."

He writes: "It is a reasonable assumption that this would be in the interests of a foreign state even if though the foreign state has never contemplated this potential advantage."

The report also notes that journalists "carrying confidential information" or material "personally embarrassing to the Prime Minister on the eve of important treaty negotiations" could face similar scrutiny.

While it remains to be seen how this report will influence future amendments, it comes at a time of increasing pressure from lawmakers against encryption.

Encryption under siege

While the report’s strong wording may come as a shock, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Encrypted apps are increasingly in the crosshairs of UK lawmakers, with several pieces of legislation targeting the technology.

Most notably, Apple was served with a technical capability notice under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) demanding it weaken the encryption protecting iCloud data. That legal standoff led the tech giant to disable its Advanced Data Protection instead of creating a backdoor.

The Online Safety Act is already well known for its controversial age verification requirements. However, its most contentious provisions have yet to be fully implemented, and experts fear these could undermine encryption even further.

On Monday, Parliament debated the Act following a petition calling for its repeal. Instead of rolling back the law, however, MPs pushed for stricter enforcement. During the discussion, lawmakers specifically called for a review of other encrypted tools, like the best VPNs.

The potential risks of the Act's tougher stance on encryption were only briefly mentioned during the discussion, suggesting a stark disconnect between MPs and security experts.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond, of the Internet Society, told TechRadar he was disappointed by the outcome of the debate. "When it came to Client Side Scanning (CSS), most felt this could be one of the 'easy technological fixes' that could help law enforcement greatly, especially when they showed their frustration at Facebook rolling end-to-end encryption," he said.

"It's clearly not understood that any such software could fall prey to hackers."

It is clear that for many lawmakers, encryption is viewed primarily as an obstacle to law enforcement. This stands in sharp contrast to the view of digital rights experts, who stress that the technology is vital for protecting privacy and security in an online landscape where cyberattacks are rising.

"The government signposts end-to-end encryption as a threat, but what they fail to consider is that breaking it would be a threat to our national security too," Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship, told TechRadar.

She also added that this ignores encryption's vital role for dissidents, journalists, and domestic abuse victims, "not to mention the general population who should be afforded basic privacy."

With the battle lines drawn, we can expect a challenging year ahead for services like Signal and WhatsApp. Both companies have previously pledged to leave the UK market rather than compromise their users' privacy and security.

• Attackers can monitor phones silently using only the victim’s phone number
• Probing significantly increases battery drain during continuous delivery receipt exploitation
• Continuous tracking consumes mobile data and interferes with heavy applications

Security researchers have disclosed a tracking technique dubbed “Silent Whisper” that exploits how popular messaging apps handle delivery acknowledgments.

The method targets WhatsApp and Signal by abusing low-level message receipts that are automatically exchanged whenever an app processes incoming network traffic.

By knowing only a phone number, an attacker can repeatedly probe a device without sending visible messages or triggering notifications.

Impact on battery life and data usage

Silent Whisper operates below the user interface, making detection unlikely during normal phone use.

Tests on multiple smartphones showed unusually high battery consumption during probing activity.

Under normal conditions, idle phones typically lose less than 1% battery per hour.

During testing, an iPhone 13 Pro lost 14% per hour, an iPhone 11 lost 18% per hour, and a Samsung Galaxy S23 lost 15% per hour.

Applying the same approach to Signal resulted in only 1% battery loss per hour due to stricter rate limiting.

Continuous probing also consumes mobile data and disrupts bandwidth-heavy applications such as video calls.

The tracking method relies on measuring round-trip times for delivery receipts.

These response times vary depending on whether a phone is active, idle, offline, connected to WiFi, or using mobile data.

Stable and fast responses can suggest that a device is actively used at home, while slower or inconsistent timings may indicate movement or weaker connectivity.

Over extended periods, these patterns can reveal daily routines, sleep schedules, and travel behavior without accessing message content or contact lists.

Although academic research described the vulnerability previously, a publicly available proof-of-concept tool has now demonstrated its practicality.

The tool allows probes at intervals as short as 50ms, enabling detailed observation without alerting the target.

The developer warns against misuse and emphasizes research intent, yet the software remains accessible to anyone.

This raises concerns about widespread abuse, especially since the vulnerability remains exploitable as of December 2025.

Disabling read receipts reduces exposure for standard messages but does not fully block this technique.

WhatsApp offers an option to block high-volume messages from unknown accounts, although the platform does not define enforcement thresholds.

Signal provides additional controls, yet researchers confirmed that probing remains possible.

Traditional antivirus software does not detect protocol-level misuse.

Services marketed for identity theft protection or malware removal offer limited value when no malware is installed on the device.

This risk is less about data theft and more about persistent behavioral monitoring that users cannot easily observe or verify.

Via Cybernews

• Meta responds to DMA fine with new data collection policy for EU customers
• Options for personalized or generic ads are now both available
• The European Commission will continue to monitor uptake

Meta is set to offer European Facebook and Instagram users an option for reduced data sharing for less personalized ads, beginning January 2026, marking a satisfactory resolution to a months-long DMA battle with the European Commission.

Under the new EU model, users can choose between full data sharing for highly personalized ads and reduced data sharing for more generic ads.

The update would replace the previous ‘consent or pay’ model that forced users to either accept data tracking and personalized ads, or to pay for ad-free access.

Meta reaches an agreement with the EU over ads under the DMA

This news comes around half a year after Meta was hit with a €200 million fine (in April 2025) relating to this matter. The amount related to affected users between March 2024 (when the DMA obligations became legally binding) and November 2024 (when the updated ads model was introduced to allow less data sharing).

“Enabling free business and consumer choice is at the core of the rules laid down in the Digital Markets Act. This includes ensuring that citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and businesses can freely communicate with their own customers,” Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy EVP Henna Virkkunen wrote at the time.

An updated model has been approved after revisions, and the EU is set to continue monitoring for compliance. “Once implemented, the Commission will seek feedback and evidence from Meta and other relevant stakeholders on the impact and uptake of this new ad model,” wrote the European Commission.

Without access to highly personal information, Meta’s ads will rely on contextual targeting, which means backend engineering work to collect different types of data in other ways.

For advertisers, it could mean that they see weaker returns with targeting becoming less efficient among users who have opted out.

“Users in the EU must have full and effective choice, which is their right under the DMA,” commented the Commission.

• Windows Latest discovered Discord and other Chromium and Electron-based applications with high RAM usage
• RAM usage spikes from 1GB to 4GB on Discord both in and out of voice chat
• It comes at a time where prices for RAM kits are exceedingly high

It's no secret at this point that the PC hardware market is in an unstable state, with prices for RAM kits skyrocketing like never before due to the current AI bubble – and that's why this Windows 11 issue is far more noticeable at this stage.

As reported by Windows Latest, Discord and other Windows 11 applications using the Electron framework are consuming significant amounts of RAM, with Discord notably spiking from 1GB up to 4GB. This is due to these apps using the Chromium browser instance and Node.js (a JavaScript runtime) for desktop app functionality, which appears to lead to memory leaks.

Being a frequent Discord user, I've noticed several instances where RAM usage exceeds 1GB, steadily increasing the longer it's open and active. While it's not unusual for applications to use a decent amount of system memory, it becomes problematic when gaming or utilizing other resource-heavy applications.

Just like Windows Latest, I tested this by joining a server and entering voice chat to stream; before the voice chat stream was active, Discord's RAM usage was at 780MB, and once I started streaming, it managed to shoot up to 1.4GB after a few minutes (screenshots below).

Now this makes sense, especially when streaming content at high resolutions like 1080p or 1440p. However, the most frustrating aspect is that even after ending the stream (and even leaving voice chat entirely), the 1.4GB of RAM usage didn't decrease, but instead fluctuated consistently between 1.2GB and 1.4GB, which was only resolved when completely restarting Discord.

This now adds further explanations on why game performance may be worse than usual when Discord is active in the background, with instant improvements seen when the application is completely shut down.

While users with 32GB or 64GB of RAM may not find this to be very problematic, it's still a portion of RAM that can impact functionality and speeds, and is undoubtedly a bigger concern for users who only have 8GB or 16GB of RAM – and with RAM kit prices exceeding the normal standard due to the AI boom, this is the worst time for applications to hog system memory.

Analysis: This is just another addition to the current RAM problems

It's one thing for Microsoft's Windows 11 to suffer from a handful of issues, with background processes actively impacting game performance for gamers, and bloatware leaving users frustrated with the operating system's lack of ease of use – but applications like Discord adding to the issue, alongside current memory demand, just makes matters worse.

While I'm personally waiting for Discord to add native support on SteamOS with a dedicated application for its game mode, it seems as though fixing this memory leak (which is what this seems to be) should be the priority.

RAM pricing issues are only going to get worse from here on it as long as this AI boom remains, and if solutions can't be introduced to Discord and other applications based on Chromium using more memory than necessary, it's going to leave more users frustrated.

• The European Commission is launching an in-depth investigation into Meta
• WhatsApp’s AI policy could be hampering AI chatbot competition
• Meta could face a fine of $16.5 billion

The European Commission has launched a formal antitrust investigation into Meta over whether its WhatsApp AI policy restricts competition by blocking rival AI chatbot providers.

Europe’s case covers most of the bloc, with the exception of Italy - which launched its own probe separately.

Per Meta’s updated WhatsApp Business API terms, third-party AI chatbots are banned from being distributed via WhatsApp if providing AI is their primary service.

WhatsApp’s AI policy has troubled the European Commission

The EU is worried that Meta might be abusing market dominance to favor its own Meta AI over rivals. Some developers have already filed complaints claiming that the policy harms competition and innovation.

OpenAI and Microsoft have already had to remove their chatbots from the platform following the introduction of revised terms, updated in October.

“AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond. We must ensure European citizens and businesses can benefit fully from this technological revolution and act to prevent dominant digital incumbents from abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors,” EC EVP for Clean, Just and Competition Transition, Teresa Ribera, wrote.

The investigation could lead to interim measures, suspending Meta’s policy before the final ruling is given. If Meta is found guilty, it could face fines of up to 10% of its global annual revenue, or $16.5 billion based on its 2024 earnings.

The company has already found itself in trouble within the EU, coughing up a €200 million fine under the Digital Markets Act.

“The emergence of AI chatbots on our Business API puts a strain on our systems that they were not designed to support,” a Meta spokesperson said, calling the allegations "baseless."

"Even still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems."

The European Commission promises to carry out an “in-depth investigation as a matter of priority.”

• ChatGPT and Copilot have announced they’ll leave WhatsApp in 2026
• The move is prompted by a change in WhatsApp’s terms of service
• That means you’ll be forced to use Meta AI if you want a WhatsApp chatbot

ChatGPT still leads the pack of the best AI tools, with rivals like Copilot not too far behind – and WhatsApp users have long been able to harness those chatbots within their messaging app. Unfortunately, Microsoft has now revealed that Copilot will be leaving WhatsApp due to a new policy from Meta, following a similar announcement from ChatGPT last month.

Conveniently, that leaves you with a single choice of AI bot within WhatsApp: Meta’s own Meta AI. And that’s likely to come as a big disappointment considering how unpopular this chatbot has proven to be, given you can't remove it.

Why exactly are ChatGPT and Copilot leaving WhatsApp? It all comes down to a change in the terms of service for WhatsApp Business Solution, which will start taking effect on January 15, 2026.

When that happens, AI companies will be banned from using WhatsApp’s API for their own chatbots, meaning ChatGPT, Copilot and others will have to withdraw their products from the app (although both chatbots will remain in WhatsApp until that date).

Interestingly, the terms do not ban chatbots used for customer service or support, just those where the chatbot itself is the product – which is exactly what you get with ChatGPT and others.

A backwards step?

Back when the changes were first announced in October, a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch that “The purpose of the WhatsApp Business API is to help businesses provide customer support and send relevant updates.”

An upshot of this, though, is that you’ll soon be forced to use Meta AI if you want to talk to an AI chatbot within WhatsApp. And that might not prove to be a popular option considering how poorly received Meta AI has been since it was first added to WhatsApp.

All it takes is a quick skim of Reddit to find countless threads decrying Meta AI and declaring it to be “the most useless and stupid thing I ever used.” When it becomes the only AI chatbot you can use within WhatsApp, those complaints are only going to grow louder.

While both ChatGPT and Copilot have announced they will be leaving WhatsApp when the ban comes into effect in January, other providers, such as Perplexity, have stayed silent.

Yet barring a change of heart from Meta, they’ll have to remove their own services come 2026, too. And with so much to gain from banning the competition, we can’t see Meta deviating from this course any time soon – unless it's forced to.

• WhatsApp has 3.5 billion active accounts exposed to metadata scraping risks globally
• Contact-discovery flaw allowed enumeration of phone numbers at a massive global scale
• Millions of encryption keys were reused across accounts, undermining security assumptions

WhatsApp users may need to take extra steps to protect their account information following a potentially concerning discovery.

A study by researchers at the University of Vienna revealed the app's contact-discovery system enabled the collection of extensive WhatsApp user data at an unprecedented scale due to insufficient rate-limiting across global endpoints.

The researchers were able to gather huge amounts of phone numbers, public profile photos, account status text, business tags, and information tied to end-to-end encryption keys.

How the data was collected at scale

The dataset included users in countries where WhatsApp is banned, including China, Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea, potentially making it possible to identify individuals in regions with strict state monitoring and limited access to encrypted tools.

The research team generated over 60 billion possible mobile numbers across more than two hundred countries using automated number-generation tools.

They then checked each number against WhatsApp servers through reverse-engineered protocols.

The method relied on modified open source clients that queried WhatsApp infrastructure directly rather than through official applications.

The process validated thousands of numbers per second without being blocked, repeating enumeration issues previously documented in 2012 and 2021.

Collected data included timestamps, device information, public-facing encryption keys, and metadata that allowed mapping usage patterns across global regions.

There were millions of cases where encryption keys were reused across different accounts despite expectations that each key should be unique.

Some keys consisted entirely of zeroes, suggesting flawed implementations by third-party clients rather than the primary application.

In a statement sent to Cyberinsider, Nitin Gupta, VP of Engineering at WhatsApp, said

“We are grateful to the University of Vienna researchers for their responsible partnership and diligence under our Bug Bounty program. This collaboration successfully identified a novel enumeration technique that surpassed our intended limits, allowing the researchers to scrape basic publicly available information. We had already been working on industry-leading anti-scraping systems, and this study was instrumental in stress-testing and confirming the immediate efficacy of these new defenses. Importantly, the researchers have securely deleted the data collected as part of the study, and we have found no evidence of malicious actors abusing this vector. As a reminder, user messages remained private and secure thanks to WhatsApp’s default end-to-end encryption, and no non-public data was accessible to the researchers.”

Meta argued that messages remained protected, but the researchers maintained that public key reuse weakens the trust model behind end-to-end encryption.

The company applied stronger rate limits in October 2025 after disclosure and later addressed a separate issue on Apple devices that allowed unauthorized media retrieval.

WhatsApp reached an estimated 3.5 billion active accounts as of early 2025, placing it among the most widely used communication platforms in history.

How to stay safe

• Limit what appears in public profile fields and avoid posting links in status messages.
• Use strong passwords and enable two-factor authentication for better account protection.
• Keep antivirus software updated to detect threats before they affect your account.
• Use identity theft protection services to monitor for suspicious activity or data misuse.
• Block unknown contacts and review account activity regularly for unusual behavior.
• Enable a firewall to prevent malicious network access and suspicious connections.
• Avoid unofficial WhatsApp clients and update the official app as soon as possible.

• Meta launches WhatsApp Research Proxy to aid bug bounty investigations into WhatsApp protocols
• Specialized research pilot expands to include abuse issues with engineering support and tooling
• In 2025, Meta validated ~800 reports, paying $4M for critical bug fixes

Meta has introduced new tools to help cybersecurity researchers find bugs in WhatsApp.

In a new blog post discussing the success of its Bug Bounty program over the last 15 years, Meta said the researchers asked for a product that would help them investigate WhatsApp-specific technologies better, and in response, it built WhatsApp Research Proxy.

Describing it as a “tool that makes research into WhatsApp’s network protocol more effective”, Meta said it will be available to “some of our long-time bug bounty researchers”, who will not only use the tool, but provide feedback to help improve it. More researchers will be invited to test the tool as time goes by, Meta added, and stressed that the goal is to release the tool publicly in the future. No exact dates were mentioned, though.

Expanding bug bounty programs

Meta also announced it would be expanding its specialized research pilot. Earlier this year, the company launched a pilot to help accelerate collaboration in particular areas - but just with researchers with proven credentials.

Now, Meta is looking to expand this partnership by incentivizing research “beyond traditional security vulnerabilities”.

As part of this expansion, Meta is now inviting research teams to focus on abuse issues with dedicated internal engineering support and tooling, all with the goal of lowering the barrier of entry for academics and other searchers who might not be as familiar with bug bounty programs.

The company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and a few other platforms, said it received around 13,000 submissions to its bug bounty program in 2025. It validated almost 800 reports, for which it made cumulative payments of more than $4 million.

Some of the worst bugs that were fixed through the program include a method that allowed mass WhatsApp account enumeration, an incomplete validation issue, and different arbitrary code execution bugs.

Via The Hacker News

We were very pleased to see an official WhatsApp app arrive for the Apple Watch earlier this week, but it's not working as intended on certain models – and the Meta team is hard at work trying to fix the problems.

When we asked Meta about the reported issues, we were told that the WhatsApp product team "is aware of this" and is currently "working quickly to get this resolved soon", so it sounds as though a solution isn't too far off.

As far as we can tell, the crashes are happening on older Apple Watch models running watchOS 10 rather than the latest software. That includes the Apple Watch 4 and Apple Watch 5 (both launched in 2019), and the first-gen Apple Watch SE (launched in 2020).

According to WhatsApp's official announcement, the app is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 4 or later, and needs watchOS 10 or later to run, so it seems it's the oldest models that meet that criteria that are having issues.

'Opens then closes immediately'

• The new WhatsApp app is crashing on some devices
• Older models running watchOS 10 seem to be affected
• Meta says the WhatsApp team is now working on a fix

There are plenty of reports on Reddit that detail the problems with WhatsApp and certain Apple Watches, and it seems that if there is an issue, the app just "opens then closes immediately" as per posts from users.

What's more, there doesn't seem to be a solution at the moment – there's no workaround you can try to get everything working properly. Uninstalling and reinstalling the WhatsApp app on the watch doesn't have any effect, for example.

As noted above, watches that aren't running the latest watchOS 11 or watchOS 26 are apparently the ones having trouble. Some other users are reporting a "buggy" experience, but managing to get the app up and running on their wrists.

When it does work as intended, the app should give you call notifications, full messages, voice messages, access to message reactions, chat history, and the ability to see images and stickers on your Apple Watch screen.

• Apple Music could soon offer lyric sharing direct to your WhatsApp status
• This would match a Spotify feature launched earlier this year
• The new feature could launch with iOS 26.2

Apple is reportedly working on a new feature for Apple Music which would allow users to share songs and lyrics to their WhatsApp status, matching a Spotify feature released earlier this year.

This new integration would allow users to directly share songs or a few lines of lyrics from Apple Music to WhatsApp directly, using custom cards and links back to Apple Music.

Currently, users can share Apple Music links to their WhatsApp status, but there’s no option to share lyrics and customization options are scarce. This update aims to remedy this while providing parity with Spotify.

For reference, WhatsApp Status is a social media-style content carousel a la Instagram Stories, which sits alongside the text string long-time users may be familiar with.

The new feature is currently available through Apple’s developer beta, and depending on the company’s update schedule could feasibly launch with iOS 26.2. After all, Apple Music was a target for new features in the recent iOS 26.1 update.

And as 9to5Mac reports, there’s still at least one issue to iron out. The share icon can simply refuse to show up when trying to share a song, rather than its lyrics, but this is likely to be fixed by release.

All said, this is another step in WhatsApp’s journey from messenger app to social platform – but more importantly, it’s a sign that Apple is still keenly chasing Spotify’s example as we approach the all-important Spotify Wrapped season.

Spotify is well ahead Apple Music when it comes to the size of its userbase, with 713 million users compared to Apple’s 95 million.

Apple Music has made several solid plays to get ahead of its Swedish rival, such as offering lossless and spatial audio all the way back in 2021 (Spotify got lossless fidelity this year, and still lacks spatial audio), but has struggled to match Spotify’s cultural cache, especially when it comes to that key 'OK, now share it!' social aspect of music.

Indeed, despite Apple Music's Replay walking all over Spotify Wrapped last year, music fans and online commentators alike still look forward to Spotify’s data-driven listening recap as the year draws to a close. Incidentally, Spotify has just launched daily recaps and a weekly Wrapped offering, so it'll be interesting to see who wins that battle this year.

While adding direct sharing to WhatsApp statuses might seem like a small upgrade to some, feature parity puts Apple Music in a better position as the spotlight shifts towards Spotify’s end-of-year antics.

Will you be sharing songs and lyrical snippets to your WhatsApp Status? Let us know in the comments.

• WhatsApp has finally launched an official Apple Watch app
• It lets you read full WhatsApp messages, record voice notes and more
• The app's available to download today for the Apple Watch Series 4 onwards

Five months on from launching its first iPad app, WhatsApp has given Apple fans another treat by launching an official Apple Watch app.

While it's been possible to read WhatsApp notifications on your Apple Watch for years, the official app promises to bring several new features to your wrist.

For starters, you'll be able to read full WhatsApp messages on your Apple Watch (including those lengthy ones from your verbose friend). You'll also be able to react to messages on your Watch, including using emojis for a quick reaction.

Beyond messages, the new Apple Watch app will also give you call notifications (so you can see who's calling without looking at your phone) and the ability to record and send voice messages, if you're that way inclined.

Meta also says you'll be able to see "more of your chat history" when reading messages on your Apple Watch. In short, it'll replicate a lot of the experience from the phone app, with Meta promising that it's planning to deliver "even more useful functionality for people with Apple Watch in the future".

Which models are compatible?

The new WhatsApp app for the Apple Watch is available to download today – as long as you have an Apple Watch Series 4 or later that's also running watchOS 10 or later.

The Series 4 came out in September 2018, so if you've bought an Apple Watch in the last seven years, you should be covered. The watchOS 10 update landed in 2023 and the Series 4 is the oldest model it supports.

While we can't yet see the app at the time of writing, you'll be able to download it either on your Apple Watch (press the digital crown, then tap App Store) or on your iPhone by going to the Watch app, going to the My Watch app and scrolling to WhatsApp, before hitting install.

The news could be particularly exciting for owners of cellular Apple Watch models, given it opens up the prospect of using something close to the iPhone's WhatsApp experience while out on a run, only without your phone.

• Meta will ban all third-party general-purpose AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, from WhatsApp in January
• Users will be forced to migrate to other platforms unless they switch to Meta AI
• The move is to reduce infrastructure strain, but it also gives more power to Meta's AI assistant and more data to the company

Meta is closing the door on third-party AI assistants inside WhatsApp. Starting January 15, 2026, no general-purpose AI chatbot, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and others, will be allowed to operate on the platform. The change is part of an update to WhatsApp’s Business API policy that bans developers of “large language models, generative AI platforms, or general-purpose AI assistants” from accessing the system.

In plain terms, Meta is locking down the world’s largest messaging app to ensure that the only chatbot you’ll find inside it is Meta AI.

For a company that’s spent the past year weaving its Meta AI into every corner of its products, this isn't too surprising. WhatsApp is a huge platform for Meta to test AI ideas, and hosting an array of third-party chatbots means not everyone there is turning to Meta AI for help.

But all of those other bots will now have to pack up and leave.

Meta AI alone

WhatsApp has more than three billion users, making it one of the most valuable front doors to consumer AI imaginable. Allowing third-party assistants to thrive inside it essentially handed competitors like OpenAI access to Meta’s user base, bypassing Meta’s own monetization plans. Now, by shutting the door, the company ensures that Meta AI will be the only chatbot with native reach inside WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.

Meta claims this is about infrastructure, saying in a statement that these chatbots put a strain on the platform because of the sheer volume of messages and the support required to sustain them. Whether that's true, given that businesses using AI for customer service, such as banks, airlines, and digital stores, won’t be affected, is unclear.

The new WhatsApp policy effectively cements a strategy of one app, one assistant, which might cause issues for those who like using multiple apps on a single platform. For millions of users who discovered ChatGPT or Perplexity through WhatsApp, the ban means a significant shift in how they access those assistants.

Starting next year, they’ll need to use standalone apps or websites instead of chatting inside their daily messenger. OpenAI, at least, seems to be taking the news with a trace of humor.

The data pipeline of Meta AI gives the company plenty of incentive to keep conversations in-house. Every chat that happens with Meta AI is yet another opportunity to refine recommendations and personalize ads. Conversations happening with external assistants, on the other hand, are interactions that Meta can’t analyze or monetize.

And Meta’s framing isn't necessarily totally disingenuous. WhatsApp’s Business API was built, as the name suggests, for transactions, not general chats. AI assistants blur the line between business and personal use.

Still, the policy is written broadly enough that Meta retains full discretion to define what qualifies as “general-purpose AI.” That means it could theoretically block future apps it deems competitive or outside its comfort zone, even if they serve a legitimate use case.

Meta's taking control is also not unique. Google integrated Gemini into its search and productivity apps, Apple has been working with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT into Siri, and Amazon uses Alexa as a gateway into its shopping empire. What’s different about Meta’s approach is the sheer scale of WhatsApp and the absence of opting out of Meta AI. You can't even turn the chatbot off.

There are fewer choices for users who prefer different assistants, and fewer opportunities for competitors to reach them. Imagine if every email app banned third-party filters except for the one made by the host company. That’s roughly the model Meta is heading toward with WhatsApp.

But if Meta can win out with a strategy of owning the chat, owning the assistant, owning the ecosystem, it will likely be worth it for its bottom line. WhatsApp will be Meta AI's personal playground, and any other AI there will only last as long as the company chooses.

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• WhatsApp is working on a long-awaited new username feature
• The latest beta lets you reserve a username for yourself
• This feature is expected to roll out more widely soon

WhatsApp is frequently touted as a private messenger (although that reputation is often questioned), but there’s a glaring weakness in its security: you have to give out your phone number when adding people to your contacts book. That presents opportunities for less scrupulous people to use your number for spam and other unwanted behavior.

WhatsApp has spent years working on a fix in the form of usernames, which would allow you to choose a hand-picked name instead of your number. And according to the sleuths at WABetaInfo, WhatsApp will let you reserve a username before the system goes live, ensuring you can use the name you want. The latest development suggests that this new feature could be just around the corner.

Interestingly, the ability to reserve a WhatsApp username was first mentioned by WABetaInfo in relation to a prior Android update in early October 2025. Yet the latest beta version adds to that work, and WABetaInfo argues that the developer’s ongoing efforts on this feature suggest that “a rollout may be coming soon.”

With the latest beta version, WhatsApp has apparently refined the username reservation process, aiming to “provide users with a smoother and more optimized experience from the start.” The update is available as part of the WhatsApp testing program on the Google Play Store, so you can try it out for yourself.

How can you reserve a username?

It doesn’t appear that the ability to reserve a username is widely available yet, although WABetaInfo’s screenshots suggest that it’s coming soon.

While the website didn’t explain how you’ll be able to reserve a username for yourself, screenshots provided by WABetaInfo suggest it might be located on your WhatsApp profile page under the Username header.

When choosing a username, you must comply with WhatsApp’s rules, which specify that a name cannot contain website elements (like “www.” or “.com”), must contain at least one letter, and cannot duplicate a name in your contacts list. Each username must also be unique and should not conflict with that of any other user.

Additionally, you’ll have the option to add a username key, which is a code that first-time contacts must enter in order to be able to message you using your username. That should prevent unknown people from sending you unwanted texts and message requests.

Keep an eye on updates from WhatsApp, as the username reservation feature is expected to launch more widely soon. When that happens, you could get a better way to contact others while better preserving your privacy.

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• Arattai’s explosive growth shows India’s growing confidence in homegrown digital innovation
• The app’s Android TV version gives users flexibility that WhatsApp still lacks
• Arattai’s lightweight design makes it perfect for users with limited connectivity

Arattai Messenger has quickly become one of the most downloaded apps in the world, crossing the 5 million mark within days of launch.

Developed in India as part of Zoho’s new messaging platform, the insant messanger app’s sudden rise reflects both a surge of local pride and growing interest in alternatives to established communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Messenger.

Arattai has already outpaced popular apps like Telegram, Messenger, and Snapchat, each currently holding around 2 million downloads on the global chart for October 2025.

An ambitious homegrown challenger

However, while Aratti's download numbers look impressive, questions remain about its long-term sustainability and its approach to privacy protection.

Arattai, which means “chat” in Tamil, is designed to offer an inclusive experience for users across all device types, particularly those with low-end smartphones and unstable internet connections.

According to Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu, the goal is to build a lightweight communication tool accessible even in areas where high-speed connectivity is still limited.

The app includes standard messaging functions such as text, calls, and file sharing, along with an Android TV version, a feature that WhatsApp has yet to introduce.

These capabilities have positioned Arattai as both a general communication tool and a potential enterprise messaging solution for smaller organizations seeking reliability without heavy data use.

Part of Arattai’s appeal lies in its efficiency. The app has been optimized for low-bandwidth environments, ensuring messages and calls work even under weak connectivity.

This design choice has made it popular in rural and semi-urban markets, where internet quality remains inconsistent.

By minimizing resource demand, Zoho has opened access to digital communication for users who might otherwise be excluded from platforms requiring faster speeds or higher-end devices.

This focus on accessibility gives Arattai an advantage in markets where data affordability and device capability still limit technology adoption.

Despite its progress, Arattai faces criticism for lacking full end-to-end encryption in text chats.

While the app offers encrypted voice and video calls, it does not yet provide complete encrypted messaging for standard conversations.

Instead, Zoho relies on localized data storage and promises that user data will not be shared externally.

Security experts argue this falls short of modern privacy expectations, as server-based encryption still allows potential access to message data by providers or external attackers.

For a platform aiming to rival WhatsApp, achieving full end-to-end security is not optional; it is essential for credibility in a privacy-conscious digital world.

Via Storyboard 18 and FE Tech Bytes

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• Discord, Pinterest, and Quora perform best in new 2025 social media privacy ranking
• Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and X face penalties for poor privacy protections
• AI training policies and regulatory fines shape platform standings in this year’s analysis

Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram have once again been flagged as among the most privacy-invasive social media platforms.

Incogni’s updated Social Media Privacy Ranking report for 2025 placed Meta’s products alongside TikTok at the bottom of its list.

X, the platform owned by divisive billionaire Elon Musk, also scored poorly in several categories, although it performed better than Meta’s services in some areas, positioning it mid-table.

Discord shows how it should be done

Incogni’s researchers evaluated the 15 most widely used social media platforms worldwide, weighing them against 14 privacy criteria grouped into six categories.

These included data collection, transparency, AI data use, regulatory transgressions, user control, and ease of access.

The methodology focused on how easily an ordinary user can understand and act on privacy policies, not only whether the information exists in the first place.

At the other end of the spectrum, Discord, Pinterest, and Quora performed best in this year’s ranking.

Discord topped the list after avoiding many of the pitfalls other platforms faced, especially its stance on not providing user data for training generative AI models.

Pinterest came in second, due mostly to strong user options and relatively few regulatory penalties. Quora took third thanks to limited data collection.

It will likely come as little surprise to most that Meta’s platforms were penalized heavily across all categories.

Facebook stood out for repeated regulatory fines, including multiple violations of GDPR rules in Europe, as well as penalties in the US and other jurisdictions.

Instagram and WhatsApp also contributed to Meta’s low ranking, with policies allowing the collection of sensitive information such as health data and sexual orientation.

X faced penalties for extensive data collection and past privacy-related fines, although it ranked higher than Meta and TikTok in some areas.

It was among the easiest platforms for users to delete accounts from, and its rate of disclosing information to government agencies was lower than most.

Still, its policies allow user data to be used for training AI models, which lowered its overall privacy score.

AI-related concerns had a much larger impact compared to last year.

Reddit, which had previously been considered one of the safer platforms, fell in the ranking after its content was made available to AI developers.

Discord’s avoidance of such practices helped propel it upward.

Transparency was another big factor. Many social platforms lacked clear details on how quickly data is deleted when users close their accounts.

TikTok, Telegram, and Reddit offered limited details, which lowered their scores.

Snapchat was also singled out for disclosing information to government agencies at a higher rate than most competitors.

Ultimately, the report concludes that user privacy remains unevenly handled across platforms. Consent can only be meaningful if information is both available and easy to understand.

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• WhatsApp has announced its latest big round of updates
• It includes the ability to share Motion / Live Photos in the app
• There's also some new AI tools like custom themes

WhatsApp has announced a host of upgrades for iOS and Android users that’ll make it a lot easier to share memories using the app – and also help you remember which weirdly-named group chat you’re looking for.

Starting with that first change (revealed in WhatsApp's blog post), it’ll soon be possible to share Live Photos and Motion Photos (from iOS and Android respectively) through WhatsApp.

These alternative snaps show your picture as if it’s a live – a bit like a short GIF or video – and can help you better capture a moment than you would with either a single shot or a quick clip alone.

If you’re on Android you’re also getting access to documents scanning so you can scan, crop, send, and save documents straight from inside the WhatsApp app. This should be handy for your more formal chats as it cuts out the need to use a whole different app to prepare a document first.

Don’t worry iPhone users, you’re not missing out. You should already have documents scanning available on your device through WhatsApp. Just go to a chat, tap the '+' icon, choose Document, then tap Scan Document.

Which chat was it again?

We’ve all been there. Your feed fills up with silly nicknames and absurd group chat titles to the point that it’s actually impossible to keep track of which group is for what beneath all those layers.

A case in point is that my old university flat-mate group chat is called “Six, but in a french way” having started years ago as simply “Queensway house.”

Now, I remember this group chat name, but if I didn’t I’d probably never find it except by manually digging through every group. Fortunately, WhatsApp is adding a helpful new search tool, as now if I look up the names of people who I know are in the chat the app will show me the group chats we share.

Once you've found your group chat of choice you can take advantage of a couple of new AI updates courtesy of Meta AI.

You can use the bot to help you generate custom chat themes of your own as part of the Chat Themes feature.

Plus, when you video call someone (individually or in a group call) you can get AI to produce a unique background for you – either places you already love or somewhere completely new. You can also use these backgrounds in your snaps and the videos you take from within the WhatsApp app.

Not the most game-changing update, but it does sound like a fun one, so I'm headed to the Play Store right now to make sure I've got the latest version of WhatsApp installed.

Meta hasn't shared exactly when all of these features (including Live and Motion photo support) will be rolling out, but we've asked it for an estimate and will update this story when we hear back.

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• WhatsApp is finally rolling out a message translation tool
• It's rolling out to Android and iPhone
• There's an added feature that's exclusive to Android users

WhatsApp is finally rolling out its highly requested message translation feature to Android and iPhone, a new tool that allows you to translate incoming messages into your preferred language.

Meta unveiled the new WhatsApp tool via a blog post, which comes months after Apple’s Live Translation feature in Messages in iOS 26. At the moment, WhatsApp’s translation capabilities are coming to Android and iPhone, so we don’t know if the same will apply to WhatsApp for the web or its Mac and Windows apps in the future.

To enable a translation in a WhatsApp message, all you have to do is long-press an incoming message and select the new ‘Translate’ option from the context menu, and then select the language you want the message to be translated from or to. You can also download your most-used languages for future translations.

One of the perks of this new tool is that it’s not limited to 1:1 conversations, and can be used in group chats and even Channel updates. Meta has also revealed that translations occur on-device, as opposed to the cloud, protecting your privacy. As for language availability, WhatsApp is starting small.

For iPhone users, translations will be available in over 19 languages to start with. In the case of Android, only six languages (English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Arabic) will be available with more to come, however, Android users will get access to an extra benefit that iPhone users won’t.

Thread translations are exclusive to Android

Despite the limited language options for Android users, WhatsApp is making up for this with thread translations, allowing you to translate an entire message thread instead of translating them one by one, which iPhone users will still have to do.

When you enable automatic translation for chat threads, all future incoming messages in that conversation will be translated – saving you loads of time with future translations.

The arrival of message translations marks a significant change in WhatsApp’s ecosystem, though other messaging platforms introduced similar tools a while back. WhatsApp users have been asking for a translation feature for a few years, and until now, they have had to seek third-party solutions such as Swift Translate and Todalingua to solve their translation problems.

With message translations, WhatsApp has shared that it “hope(s) this feature helps break down language barriers and allows users to connect more deeply with loved ones and communities around the globe”. It’s a small launch for Android users at the moment, but is likely to grow as more users get used to it.

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• In a joint letter, over 30 experts condemn Russia's blocking of encrypted apps and VPNs
• The signatories also contest the forced pre-installation of the government-backed MAX app on Russian devices
• WhatsApp, today's most popular messaging app in Russia, is set to become the latest victim of Moscow's censorship

A group of over 30 experts is condemning Russia's escalation against VPNs and encrypted apps.

The signatories of the open letter published on September 16, 2025, also contest the forced pre-installation of unencrypted alternatives on Russian devices. These include civil societies, like Access Now, Article 19, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and the Tor Project, alongside tech providers behind some of the best VPN and encrypted email services (Nord Security, Proton, and Tuta Mail).

"The blocking of encrypted services in Russia, combined with the mandatory deployment of non-encrypted state-controlled apps, should be understood as part of a wider campaign against human rights, rather than isolated acts of regulation," reads the open letter.

The pledge comes as WhatsApp, the only encrypted messaging app still working in Russia, risks becoming the latest victim of Moscow's censorship. While starting from September 1, the government-backed MAX app must be pre-installed on every new smartphone and tablet sold in Russia.

In July, the Kremlin also passed a new law against 'extremist' content search, which makes using a VPN to access this content a crime as an aggravating factor. It's worth noting that authorities define Meta, the provider behind WhatsApp, as an extremist organization.

That's why, according to experts, the international community must respond with clarity and resolve this matter. "Free, private, and secure communication is not a privilege, but a fundamental right that must be protected everywhere," they added.

Russia's attack on encrypted chats

Roskomnadzor, the infamous Russian censor body, is responsible for the blocking of countless websites and applications over the years – including encrypted messaging apps that should help citizens keep their conversations private and secure.

Access to both Proton Mail and Tuta Mail, for example, has been restricted since 2020. Russian authorities also banned Signal in 2024, and are now considering a ban on WhatsApp.

According to experts, these actions "violate internationally recognized human rights," including people's rights to free speech, access to information, and privacy.

"Encryption is a fundamental right," said Matthias Pfau, CEO of Tuta Mail. "By blocking access to secure communication, Russia wants to control its entire population, including journalists, activists, and anyone having opposing ideas to the ruling class."

At the same time, the Kremlin is working on expanding the reach of its national digital sovereignty system by forcing citizens to use state-developed applications.

Experts have already expressed serious concerns after analyzing the latest VK-made software, MAX. A messaging app with "an enormous surveillance potential," they warn.

A crackdown on circumvention tools

The Kremlin's fight against VPN, proxy servers, and the Tor Browser certainly isn't new. As more people in Russia have turned to circumvention tools to bypass ever-stricter internet censorship, authorities have been doing their best to prevent this.

While their use isn't completely banned, ever-sophisticated VPN blocking techniques mean that many services may get blocked or throttled. That's why it's vital for anyone in Russia to pick a VPN with strong censorship-resistant features like Proton VPN, NordVPN, or Amnezia VPN.

In March 2024, the government introduced a law to criminalize the spread of information about ways to circumvent internet restrictions.

That's likely the basis that led Roskomnadzor to issue VPN removal demands against Big Tech giants. Apple was the most complainant, killing at least 60 VPN apps, including the popular Russian service Amnezia VPN, from July 2024 onwards.

The July 2025 law introduces additional penalties for violating rules on VPN usage, despite still not directly prohibiting the use of VPNs. Yet it adds to the ongoing crackdown against VPN users.

As experts note, "restricting both encrypted communication platforms and VPNs leaves people in Russia with exceedingly few options for secure communication."

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Nepal is just the latest in a long list of countries shutting down access to social media platforms during times of political instability – and at least the 8th nation to do so in 2025 so far.

Authorities in Nepal began enforcing a ban on all major social media apps and websites starting from Thursday, September 4. 26 social media platforms were impacted, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. The government justified the ban by saying that these companies failed to comply with local registration rules – TechCrunch reported – as well as the ban serving as a way of tackling fake news, hate speech, and online fraud, according to the BBC.

However, the ban would then be lifted on Tuesday, September 9, and, as when similar incidents have occurred elsewhere, Nepalese citizens have turned en masse to the best VPN services to stay connected.

One of the most secure and reliable free VPN apps on the market, Proton VPN recorded spikes in usage of over 8,000% across the country starting from Thursday.

A company spokesperson told TechRadar that, at the time of writing, Proton VPN usage still remains above baseline in Nepal, despite the rate of downloads starting to decrease as the ban was loosened.

How a VPN can help?

A virtual private network (VPN) encrypts all users' internet connections, while masking their IP address for extra privacy and security.

The latter skill is exactly what's needed to be able to bypass otherwise geo-blocked content online, such as a censored website, like in the case of Nepal.

All that's needed is connecting to a VPN server based outside of Nepal (and any other country enforcing similar restrictions) to trick the local internet service provider (ISP) into granting access to censored sites.

Social media bans – a quick 2025 overview

Nepal is the 8th example in 2025 so far of a government opting to restrict social media access as political tensions grow across the country, impacting people's right to free speech and access to information.

Only this week, Turkey enforced a 24-hour blockade on all major social media apps on Monday, September 8, throttling access to X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp. That was at least the second time it happened this year, with a similar ban occurring in March.

Proton VPN downloads also skyrocketed in Indonesia at the end of August, with spikes of "+1300% overnight amid reports of social media blocks during anti-government protests," wrote Proton VPN's General Manager, David Peterson, on a post on X.

Social media restrictions also occurred in 2025 across Kenya, Tanzania, Togo, DR Congo, and Venezuela. The latter country even targeted VPN usage by blocking over 20 VPN websites.

In 2024, Proton recorded spikes in VPN usage across 119 countries during times of political crisis, over what experts at Access Now described as "the worst year on record for internet freedoms," yet again.

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Update: Access to social media was restored on September 8, 2025, after publication. We made some edits to the copy to reflect this.

Turkey has enforced a 24-hour blockage to prevent access to all main social media platforms as political tensions grew in the country.

X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp all went dark on multiple networks starting from the evening of Sunday, September 7, 2025, as recorded by internet watchdog NetBlocks. "The incident comes as the main opposition party CHP [Republican People’s Party] calls for rallies after police blockade its Istanbul headquarters," explained NetBlocks.

Isik Mater, Director of Research at NetBlocks, confirmed to Techradar that the situation remained unchanged in the afternoon of Monday, September 8, "with networks in Istanbul specifically targeted," she added. Restrictions would then be lifted a few hours later – precisely "a day after broad restrictions were imposed," NetBlocks reported.

Citizens have not wasted time, immediately turning to the best VPN apps to retain access to blocked social media platforms. Proton VPN, for example, recorded a spike in signups of more than 500% on an hourly basis on the night of Sunday.

Talking to TechRadar, a Proton spokesperson suggests enabling its Stealth protocol and the alternative routing option for a better chance of evading social media blocks. "It may require a few extra steps and a few tries, but this is the optimal way to connect in these circumstances."

Proton also recommends downloading its virtual private network (VPN) app only via the official app store. On desktop, users can do so via Proton's GiftHub page in case its official website is also blocked.

Not the first time

This is far from the first time Proton VPN, currently ranked as one of the best free VPN services on the market, has recorded similar spikes in usage in Turkey as citizens attempt to navigate online disruptions.

In March, the provider registered a spike of +1100% as the government shut down all main social media platforms for 42 hours.

Before that, in 2024, Proton VPN signups skyrocketed by 1,400% in October and 4,500% in August amid similar blocks on social media services.

Citizens increasingly turned to Proton VPN in 2023, too. The company recorded a staggering 15,000% increase in February after Twitter was blocked following a deadly earthquake and a 2,100% spike in May as citizens prepared for potential blocks ahead of the presidential elections.

All this means, Proton explains, that many internet users in Turkey have already downloaded Proton VPN over the years. Therefore, "the increases are typically smaller than in other regions," a Proton VPN spokesperson told TechRadar.

Some people may have turned to other VPN services, too. Surfshark, for example, also confirmed to TechRadar an increase in VPN usage starting from Sunday night.

These spikes have occurred despite both Proton VPN and Surfshark being among the 27 VPN providers restricted in Turkey, alongside NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and others. Specifically, their official websites are blocked in the country.

All in all, according to Surfshark's data, this newest case marks Turkey’s 18th internet restriction since 2015, affecting X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp.

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• Security researchers have found that the Russia-developed messaging app MAX comes with "excessive tracking" abilities
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Russian WhatsApp rival, the state-developed MAX messaging app, appears to be designed to spy on its users.

That's the verdict coming from multiple technical analyses commissioned by Forbes, only days before the app will be forced onto all devices sold in Russia. From September 1, tech vendors must pre-install the MAX app on all new smartphones and tablets.

Experts at the Russian digital rights group, Roskomsvoboda, however, told TechRadar that MAX actually comes with fewer permissions than rivals like Telegram and WhatsApp. Yet they still strongly suggest against using the app for confidential communication.

"The bigger issue lies in the fact that everything transmitted through MAX will be stored on government servers," Ilya Perevalov, Technical Expert of Roskomsvoboda and RKS Global, told TechRadar, adding that the full impact on users "will become clear in the future."

Developed by VK – the provider behind Mail.ru email and VKnote social media services – Max was first launched in March 2025 and already counts 18 million registered users, according to Russian news agency Interfax. Similar to the Chinese WeChat, MAX is also integrated with government services.

What are the risks of using MAX?

Security researchers who talked to Forbes have all found the app to constantly monitor users' activities thanks to "excessive tracking" capabilities. The app also seems to be lacking encryption protections, while being built on an overall insecure design.

These findings confirm what privacy experts have long feared – using MAX will make Russian citizens vulnerable to state surveillance. An allegation that, so far, the Kremlin has strongly denied, declaring to Reuters that "it has fewer permissions to access user data than rivals WhatsApp and Telegram."

While experts at Roskomsvoboda confirmed what the Kremlin claims about the number of permissions MAX asks for, they are still warning that the app could turn into a surveillance tool.

"MAX has enormous surveillance potential, as all information and communication within it is accessible to intelligence agencies in real time," explains Perevalov.

MAX users are also at higher risk of data breaches and fraud, especially considering that sensitive data like payment and banking details are set to be integrated within the app.

All in all, "MAX should under no circumstances be used for confidential communication," warns Perevalov.

Can people in Russia use other encrypted messaging services?

While Signal has been blocked in Russia since August last year, WhatsApp is still available and the most used messaging app across the country at the time of writing.

This could soon change, however, as authorities have recently confirmed their intention to ban WhatsApp in Russia, blocking access to the only Meta-owned service still functioning in the country.

Even more recently, on August 13, 2025, Interfax confirmed that authorities partially restrict calls on both Telegram and WhatsApp, allegedly as a measure to combat criminal and terrorist activities.

The looming WhatsApp ban comes as the Kremlin also recently passed a law to punish online searches for so-called 'extremist' content, while adding new penalties to those using VPN services.

This means that using one of the best VPN services to bypass a potential ban on WhatsApp, or any other app for that matter, has suddenly become ever more challenging.

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• Meta has added a new AI-powered Writing Help feature to WhatsApp
• The tool can rephrase your text or proofread it for errors
• It’s opt-in, so you’ll need to enable it before you can use it

These days it seems that every app is incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) in some way, and WhatsApp is rolling out a new AI feature that could help improve your messages and enable you to say exactly what you want to say.

Meta announced the new Writing Help feature in a blog post. It uses AI to suggest different ways you could phrase a drafted sentence, with options to simply proofread or rephrase the text, or to spruce it up in a more professional, humorous, or supportive manner.

Meta says this AI helper is built upon its Private Processing tech. This is a cloud service that encrypts your requests, meaning neither Meta nor WhatsApp can read them. Meta says it only uses data “that’s useful for processing the user’s request.” Once your query has been answered, it’s no longer stored on Meta’s servers. Meta doesn’t say whether your messages are used to train its AI, though.

How to use Writing Help

The feature isn't available everywhere yet, as Meta says it’s rolling it out starting in the US and “several other countries” with more coming “later this year”. It's also opt-in, so you'll need to enable it first. To do so, open WhatsApp, tap Settings > Chats > Private Processing, then enable the Private Processing feature – if you don't see this option then it's not available in your region yet.

To use Writing Help, you’ll first need to open a thread and draft a message in its text box. Once you’ve done that, you should see the sticker icon in the chat bar transform into a pencil. Tap this, then choose a writing option or style from the bottom of the app. If you’ve chosen to rephrase your text, you’ll see a range of different choices – tap one to have it replace your original draft text.

Note that you don’t have to just stick with whatever WhatsApp has suggested, as you can subsequently edit the new text and make further refinements before sending it.

If you do decide to enable Private Processing – and, with it, Writing Help – you might find it’s a useful way to get across the meaning of what you want to say when you can’t quite think of the right words. That might help prevent a rash of awkward conversations where your meaning is misunderstood or misinterpreted.

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• Russia has already banned WhatsApp and Telegram
• Users flocked to Google Meet, which could also get banned
• WeChat-based Max platform will come pre-installed on an phones soon

Russia is considering banning Google Meet as part of a broader crackdown on foreign tech, according to The Moscow Times reporting.

Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal agency responsible for the country’s media, has already banned voice and video calls via WhatsApp and Telegram, and the country is set to expand restrictions even further.

With users seeking alternatives, Google Meet quickly became one of the most popular alternatives – one that Roskomnadzor is now also looking to ban.

Russia bans Google Meet

Google Meet recently faced widespread disruptions, with over 2,000 individual reports complaining about frozen calls, missing video/audio and unexpected shutdowns, however Roskomnadzor has publicly denied any involvement.

“People started experimenting with other platforms after blocking calls in WhatsApp and Telegram, apparently, overloads led to certain failures,” Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications Andrei Svintsov said in a conversation with Abzats.

“Roskomnadzor has not taken any measures to restrict the operation of the Google Meet video conferencing service in Russia, the agency’s press told Interfax,” news agency Interfax wrote in a (translated) Telegram post.

The post also described Meta as “extremist,” linking WhatsApp with fraud, sabotage and terrorism. WhatsApp had over 97 million users in Russia in July 2025 according to Reuters.

“However, applications that can monitor our citizens, transfer information to Western special services, may well be blocked,” Svintsov added.

Industry analysts are expecting an imminent ban on Google Meet to tie in with Russia’s promotion of Max, a state-backed app set to be pre-installed on all new smartphones from September, based on China’s WeChat.

Max, which is still in a testing phase, has amassed around 18 million users already.

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• Russia's WhatsApp rival to be pre-installed on new smartphones and tablets from September – here's what we know

• Max, a Russia-developed messaging app, must be pre-installed on every new device from September 1
• The domestic RuStore app store is also to be forced onto Apple devices, after already being mandatory on Android
• Authorities are reportedly considering blocking WhatsApp, today's most popular messaging app in Russia

A Russia-developed messaging app must be pre-installed on every new smartphone and tablet sold in Russia starting from September 1, 2025 – the government confirmed on Thursday, August 21.

So-called Max, the WhatsApp rival, is also integrated with government services and has already reached 18 million registered users, according to Interfax.

Privacy experts have been raising the alarm, arguing that Max could spy on its users. Something that the Kremlin strongly denies, arguing that "it has fewer permissions to access user data than rivals WhatsApp and Telegram," Reuters reported.

As per the government announcement, on September 1, the domestic RuStore app store will also become mandatory on all Apple devices, having been forced only on Android gadgets so far.

Can people in Russia still use WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is currently the most popular messaging service across Russia, and the only Meta-owned app not blocked in the country.

This could soon change, however, as authorities have recently confirmed their intention to ban WhatsApp in Russia.

Talking to Reuters on Friday, July 18, Deputy Head of the Russian parliament's Information Technology Committee, Anton Gorelkin, said that "it's time for WhatsApp to prepare to leave the Russian market," while reminding that Meta has been designated as an extremist organization in Russia.

Two more government sources have then confirmed to Meduza, a Russian Independent media outlet, that "there’s a 99-percent chance" the WhatsApp block will happen.

Fast-forward to August 13, Interfax confirmed that authorities partially restrict calls on both Telegram and WhatsApp, allegedly as a measure to combat criminal and terrorist activities.

The looming WhatsApp ban comes as the Kremlin also recently passed a law to punish online searches for so-called 'extremist' content, while adding new penalties to those using VPN services.

This means that using one of the best VPN services to bypass a potential ban on WhatsApp, or any other app for that matter, has suddenly become ever more challenging.

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• Max, a domestic messaging app integrated with government services, will be installed on every new device from September 2025

People in Russia may soon need to find a replacement for WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app across the country.

Talking to Reuters on Friday, July 18, 2025, the Deputy Head of the Russian parliament's Information Technology Committee, Anton Gorelkin, said that "it's time for WhatsApp to prepare to leave the Russian market," adding that Meta has been designated as an extremist organization in Russia.

On Tuesday, July 22, Russia passed a law to punish online searches for so-called 'extremist' content, while adding new penalties to those using VPN services.

How likely is WhatsApp to leave Russia?

Russian authorities haven't shared any details on how or when the WhatsApp ban will be enforced.

That said, Meta, the provider behind WhatsApp, has already been designated as an extremist organization, with two of its other services (Facebook and Instagram) being banned since 2022.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, however, also reiterated the fact that WhatsApp "has certain duties under laws of the Russian Federation" that must be fulfilled – Interfax reported.

Two more government sources have then confirmed to Meduza, a Russian Independent media outlet, that "there’s a 99-percent chance" the WhatsApp block will happen.

The looming WhatsApp ban comes as the Kremlin is developing its own messaging app with government services integrated. From September 2025, Max is set to be installed on every device sold in Russia, the Independent reported.

Can a VPN help?

A virtual private network (VPN) encrypts users' internet connections while spoofing their real IP address. The latter skill is generally used to bypass this type of internet geo-blocking – something Russian authorities have been trying to prevent for a long time.

From ever-sophisticated VPN blocking tactics, which make many VPN services stop working, the Kremlin even criminalized the spread of information about ways to circumvent internet restrictions in March 2024, forcing the likes of Apple to remove some of the best VPN apps from its official App Store.

Now, a new law further complicates things for VPN users. Starting from July 22, there are new penalties for people searching for and accessing "knowingly extremist materials," including when they do that while connected to a VPN.

Furthermore, lawmakers have reportedly also adopted a provision that makes using a VPN to access extremist content – something that WhatsApp may be set to become – "a crime as an aggravating factor."

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