{"id":4406,"date":"2022-05-09T13:10:12","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T11:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rwp.codeseed.io\/?p=4406"},"modified":"2023-03-16T14:33:57","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T13:33:57","slug":"is-whatsapp-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.recharge.com\/blog\/en-gb\/ie\/is-whatsapp-safe","title":{"rendered":"Is WhatsApp safe: A quick overview & comparison with Telegram and Signal"},"content":{"rendered":"
WhatsApp allows us to communicate with each other over great distances. Like other messaging apps, your messages could potentially be read by people you don\u2019t know. Used for things you are not aware of. If you\u2019re looking to find out if Whatsapp is still safe, you are in the right place.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

What is a messaging app?<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n
Messaging apps are great. They allow us to stay in contact with each other at a very low cost. Since they don\u2019t work on the phone network you can use them on Wi-Fi. Some even allow you to call this way. Meaning you don\u2019t even need an expensive phone contract. You can switch to prepaid <\/a><\/span><\/span>instead and save on costs. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
More and more companies use their messaging apps to collect data, however. Meaning you\u2019re not always quite sure your private messages stay private. Take WhatsApp for instance. It\u2019s the <\/span>most popular messaging app worldwide<\/span><\/a><\/span>, by far. If you\u2019re one of its 1.6 Billion users, you might have heard some of the horror stories. How WhatsApp now shares all your data with Facebook. In reality, it\u2019s a bit more nuanced than that. Is WhatsApp safe? And what are the other options if you\u2019re looking for an encrypted messaging app? Read on to find out.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

What is an encrypted messaging app?<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n
To understand whether WhatsApp is safe or not we first need to understand a bit about encryption. Don\u2019t worry, there is no math or technical information involved. At its heart, encryption is easy. You just take a message and change it a little in a systematic way. Let\u2019s say we want to encrypt the word \u2018why\u2019. Just change every letter to the letter to the right on your keyboard. It now reads \u2018eju\u2019. Congrats! You\u2019ve just written an encrypted message. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
You\u2019ve probably written something like this in high school. It\u2019s a simple form of encryption. You have a message and one way of systematically changing every letter. That way of changing the message, we call that the key. You need the key to change the message back and be able to read it. The most famous version of this kind of encryption was used by the <\/span>Roman general Ceasar.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The problem with this kind of encryption is that it\u2019s so systematic that it becomes easy to crack. Especially with the computing power that exists today. A computer can just try every possible key until it gets the right one. This method is called brute force.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Modern encrypted messaging apps use more complicated algorithmic encryption. To explain how this works exactly would be a bit technical. If you want to find out more, check <\/span>this article <\/span><\/a><\/span>out. To put it in simple terms, there are so many possible variations to the key, that it\u2019s impossible for a computer to brute force it. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
One last important part of an encrypted messaging app is \u2018end-to-end\u2019 encryption. What this means is that it\u2019s nearly impossible to intercept the key and decrypt the message that way. In theory, modern encryption combined with end-to-end encryption makes your messages impossible to read for anyone but you.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Is WhatsApp safe?<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n
With all that in mind. Is WhatsApp still safe? To begin with, WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption. This means they cannot read your messages and cannot share them with Facebook. On this level, Whatsapp is still one of the most secure messaging apps around. WhatsApp\u2019s encryption makes sure your messages stay private. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
They are, however, reserving the right to collect other data. This includes your general, but not exact, location. It also includes information on how you\u2019re using the app, like how many people and how often you are sending messages. All this information can be used by WhatsApp as well as Facebook and their parent company Meta to improve services and sell targeted advertising. You can find more information on how much data WhatsApp collects on <\/span>their website<\/span><\/a><\/span>. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, yes, WhatsApp is collecting data and sharing it with Facebook. But it\u2019s collecting far less data than Facebook itself does, or Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or Google do. If you\u2019re using any of those services, WhatsApp is not your biggest data leak. In other words, WhatsApp is still safe to use. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But if you are nervous about WhatsApp\u2019s connection to Facebook, or if you\u2019re just looking for the safest option out there. Then there are some options you can look at.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Telegram v Whatsapp<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n
Telegram is one of the most popular messaging apps after WhatsApp. This is for a couple of reasons. Telegram has a secret chat option. This uses end-to-end encryption but also prevents messages from being backed up in a cloud. Messages only exist on the phones of the sender and receiver. Besides that, group chats and self-destructing messages are popular features of Telegram. Then, is Telegram safe? Generally, yes. The biggest disadvantage of Telegram is that end-to-end encryption is not the default. You have to turn secret chat on to use it. <\/span><\/div>\n

Benefits of Telegram:<\/span><\/h3>\n