26 ms·

Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

312 points by andersonmat 10y ago

blackoil 10y ago
This is not an independent app. It is still tethered to the phone, and can't work without it :(
- kawera 10y ago
  Their servers do not store unencrypted messages so they need to come from the phone.
  - jng 10y ago
    I guess they could do an "untethered" desktop version but they don't really want to. Solve syncing of history etc but it's doable. But they just love living in your pocket. It's all about owning you, and that's easier if they stay with you all the time.
    - sanjeetsuhag 10y ago
      I feel the same way. Just build an independent app already. Telegram did it well. What's stopping WhatsApp ?
      - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
        As kawera said two comments above yours: Their servers do not store unencrypted messages so they need to come from the phone. ---- That's why some people criticise Telegram: Their messages have to be stored unencrypted for their setup to work.
        kawera 10y ago
        Exactly. Telegram's "Secret Conversations" are encrypted end-to-end but then they aren't synced (or even supported on desktop).
        newjersey 10y ago
        My workaround for this is to create a group chat. I only talk to two people on Signal but I've asked both of them to message in the group chat that I've made. Now, I can answer chat messages on my nexus 5, nexus 6, and nexus 7. (I built the apk from source for the Nexus 7. I wouldn't recommend this if you actually want secrecy. I'm not doing anything confidential so I am not too worried about targeted attempts.)
        khedoros 10y ago
        What's stopping them from either providing a way to sync the key to other devices, or allow the device to register its own keys, and they just store a couple copies of the encrypted data? It seems like there should be ways to do it without storing unencrypted data.
        dingo_bat 10y ago
        AFAIK Apple Message implements encryption and has independent clients. So I think the problem can be solved with some effort.
        neerdowell 10y ago
        Each device has its own key. Before a message is sent, the client grabs all the keys for each device associated with the account of the recipient, it then encrypts the message separately for each device and sends a separate encrypted copy for each device. This scheme has various weaknesses, eg. a rogue key could be associated with someone's account without their knowledge, and anyone who sends this person messages will therefore be sending a copy encrypted with the rogue key.
      - bikamonki 10y ago
        Monetization strategy is what's stopping Whatsapp. Eventually, there will be an official API so business can hook CRMs to clients' Whatsapp accounts. However, FB is first trying that with Messenger API/bots. I assume Whatsapp API/bots comes next. FB did not pay billions for the most popular chat app just to let 1 billion people use it for free forever...
        lucb1e 10y ago
        Free? Every WhatsApp user paid Facebook on day one with the contents of their address book and how frequently one person contacts another. This is of huge value if your business model is exactly to gather this kind of data.
        lunula 10y ago
        All the talk about encryption and privacy seems to ignore this basic point. Association can be dangerous and this does not protect people from exposing themselves in that way.
        bikamonki 10y ago
        True, but to be honest I am not sure that alone is worth 22B, in particular when you have to show shareholders how you plan to make that money back. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-28/facebook-s-22-billion-whatsapp-deal-buys-10-million-in-sales http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-28/facebook-s...
      - raimue 10y ago
        Telegram also only shares unencrypted chats across multiple devices.
    - kawera 10y ago
      How could then sync end-to-end encrypted messages?
      - kobayashi 10y ago
        Same way iMessage does
        dmix 10y ago
        The same way Signal does is probably a better example.
        danieldk 10y ago
        Keep in mind that Whatsapp still supports pretty old devices (Nokia S40/60), where you may not want to encrypt every image N times. Edit: remove some stuff.
        kccqzy 10y ago
        Actually iMessage doesn't encrypt each image N times. It encrypts once, upload it to a server, then encrypts the image encryption key N times.
      - motoboi 10y ago
        Sender encrypts same message several times, one for each receiver device. Store them the same way they store today. When the first device picks up the message, mark as delivered, when the user reads it, mark as read. Something along those lines, I guess. EDIT: message is encrypted, but not it's metadata, as the server must know where it came from and where it is going to.
        camillomiller 10y ago
        Considering how much information about a subject is inferrable by means of metadata only, I'd say this is a much better solution, security wise.
      - 10y ago
  - leesalminen 10y ago
    Couldn't they store encrypted messages on their servers but not store any keys? They'd just need a mechanism to privately share they key between devices (Bluetooth pairing)?
    - spacehome 10y ago
      Or every device has a different key, a la iMessage, which in my opinion is better so long as everyone has Apple devices.
- cuchoi 10y ago
  If Whatsapp had a desktop app, I would use it for almost everything. Right now my main way of communicating while I am in my laptop in Google Hangouts. It would be also very useful for the few times that I run out of battery.
- funkyy 10y ago
  Just when I started using web app my gut told me that Facebook wont allow WhatsApp to directly compete with messenger and Facebooks messaging platform. If both would allow similar technology they not only would be fighting over the same market, but would be easy target to anti-monopoly bodies.
jeffjose 10y ago
No linux version. I was almost convinced that this was going to be another Electron app (after slack went that route)
- alexandrerond 10y ago
  Telegram forever ahead...
  - dmix 10y ago
    Minus the whole end-to-end encryption thing... which is still missing in their Linux gui client.
    - giancarlostoro 10y ago
      There are alternate clients that support it on Linux. "Cutegram" http://aseman.co/en/products/cutegram/ http://aseman.co/en/products/cutegram/
    - devishard 10y ago
      And from all their other clients, if the industry assessments of their so-called encrypted protocol are to be believed.
- kawera 10y ago
  It is an Electron app from what I can see on OSX (Electron/React Native/Mantle/Squirrel). No voice calls though.
- tim333 10y ago
  I recommend Franz (http://meetfranz.com/ http://meetfranz.com/). Does Whatsapp, works on Linux, mac, pc. Supports Slack, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe and Skype.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
Tiktaalik 10y ago
Nice. Maybe with this I can convince my friends to move over to WhatsApp from Google Hangouts. The lack of desktop app support for Hangouts has been driving me nuts.
- tsycho 10y ago
  You could just open hangouts.google.com in a browser window, why do you need a native app? Also, Hangouts would not need phone tethering
  - Tiktaalik 10y ago
    It's incredibly frustrating to find the one tab/window you have open to hangouts when you have dozens of windows/tabs open.
- Quiark 10y ago
  WhatsApp has (proper) end-to-end encryption which is IMO a big win over Hangouts.
- witty_username 10y ago
  Why do you need desktop app support for Hangouts? You can install the extension.
  - ascorbic 10y ago
    Because I can't cmd-tab to it. Because it brings every Chrome window to front if I just want to read a message. Because it floats on top of Chrome whenever it's open. Because I can't easily move it between monitors, or to a different part of the screen. It's also really rubbish at uploading files. Why can't I drag and drop? And how about search? You're Google ffs. Why do I have to go to Gmail to search Hangouts, instead of allowing search in, oh I don't know, how about in Hangouts? Some of these may have changed since I abandoned Hangouts last year for Telegram, which still has the best desktop experience.
    - 10y ago
shoggs 10y ago
This just seems to be exactly like the Whatsapp Web running in the browser. I don't understand what benefit comes from the native client.
- Tiktaalik 10y ago
  With a desktop app you can easily and quickly command-tab to it if you want to use it. In contrast with a web app it's often awkward and time consuming to find the window/tab of the web app you're running amongst your other browser windows/tabs.
  - jackmodern 10y ago
    Try fluidapp, solves that problem very quickly.
  - takno 10y ago
    Chrome has that sorted already on android, where you can run up a site with a home screen link, different icon and separate listing in the task list. Given the work they've recently put in on full screen mode on desktop it looks like they're maybe a couple of versions away from having something similar on desktop
    - tuxracer 10y ago
      Actually they're removing it on Android even :(
      - nsgi 10y ago
        Really? Thought support for that feature was increasing with the web app manifests. Do you have a source?
      - takno 10y ago
        They're actively adding features. It's a little more complex than it used to be with the manifest, and needing a service worker and encryption for a lot of features, but it's all still there
syn_33 10y ago
Still tethered to a phone... i'll just keep using this https://github.com/Aluxian/WhatsApp-Desktop https://github.com/Aluxian/WhatsApp-Desktop
- sanjeetsuhag 10y ago
  Of course its still tethered. Does the app you linked bypass the tethering ? I fail to see the benefits offered by the app you linked over the official client.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  Yup. Meanwhile I'll be using this https://telegram.org https://telegram.org
Strom 10y ago
Windows 8 minimum? Is this an UWP app or what's the reasoning here? Edit: I downloaded and successfully launched this on Windows 7. It seems like a standard Electron app. Now I wonder if the Windows 8 requirement is purely for tech support reasons, or if there's some specific feature that would fail on Windows 7.
- Touche 10y ago
  Microsoft doesn't support Windows 7 any more, why should WhatsApp?
  - tmottabr 10y ago
    But windows 7 is still support by microsoft. Extended support goes until 2020.
  - NamTaf 10y ago
    Because they bill it for use at work and the overwhelming majority of businesses are using Win7 there.
  - Strom 10y ago
    You are misinformed. Microsoft even supports Vista, not to mention 7. [1] In addition, if XP support deadline extensions are anything to go by, then these Windows 7 end-of-support dates will get moved several times until they stick. Beyond that, Windows 7 remains by far the most popular Windows version, exceeding the combined market share of Windows 8, Windows 8.1 & Windows 10. [2][3] Unrelated to market share & OS updates, there's the technical question. There aren't many Win32 APIs which are present in Windows 8, but not Windows 7. Thus it's not that likely that Windows 7 wouldn't be supported by a Win32 app (which this is), unless they go out of their way to make it so. [1] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle [2] http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp [3] https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share...
    - 10y ago
_wmd 10y ago
Is anyone qualified to comment on what this will do with my OS X address book and similar data should I open it? edit: on the plus side, looks like it's just their web app repackaged using Electron. Still not sure what all these helpers are for though
- kawera 10y ago
  From what I can see, it didn't access either my OSX Address Book or my Android Contacts.
- yaegers 10y ago
  Since it "just" mirrors your phone it shouldn't access your OSX address book. But since most people use iCloud to sync that address book with their Mac and their phone its moot. If you open WhatsApp on your phone, it will take a trip through your contacts and upload everything to their servers. Which, I still maintain, is stupid and unnecessary and the numer one reason why I never bothered with WhatsApp. It's an IM client. So let me put my numer in and that's it. If I want to use it, I probably already know the people that also use it. So if they in turn also hae uploaded their number, I could search for it and add it. Have them confirm out connection and chat away. There is no need to grab all my contacts' information without their consent.
Longhanks 10y ago
I hate Websites selling themselves as "Desktop apps". I'd much rather have a native interface, me and my battery would say thank you for that.
colordrops 10y ago
This is nearly identical to the WeChat desktop app. Looks like Whatsapp did some "innovation arbitrage".
tfranco 10y ago
Is this a rip off from ChitChat? https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > Is this a rip off from ChitChat? White background with a list of users to the side. Isn't that a ripoff of well, half of messaging apps.
- tszming 10y ago
  Have you ever used the "WhatsApp Web"?
- molmalo 10y ago
  Well, the very first thing in the readme for that project says: "A Mac app wrapper around WhatsApp's web client, WhatsApp Web. https://web.whatsapp.com/" https://web.whatsapp.com/"
  - sidneys 10y ago
    Which the official App also is.
tostitos1979 10y ago
Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- shliachtx 10y ago
  Not an excuse, but: A) WhatsApp is a true messaging app. Once the messages are delivered, they are deleted from the server, so you need a primary device that stores the messages. B) It currently uses a phone number as identification, in order to create a true desktop app you would need another method (unless you use a landline or dumbphone phone number for desktop as well).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - cft 10y ago
    Messages are not deleted from the server. They are probably stored there in the encryped form. When I open the web version of WhatsApp, same images and the message history that i have on my phone get downloaded there. I highly doubt that they rely on my phone as the only master storage of that data and upload all images into the web version from it?
    - ars 10y ago
      Actually yes, that is exactly what they do: Download everything from the phone.
      - cft 10y ago
        Including 2MB images in the conversation? Has someone verified this by looking at the traffic?
Julio-Guerra 10y ago
It seems to be nothing more than https://web.whatsapp.com/ https://web.whatsapp.com/ in a web view. So I can't really see interest.
- micheljansen 10y ago
  I previously created my own "native" app from this by wrapping https://web.whatsapp.com https://web.whatsapp.com in an Electron wrapper so that I could have WhatsApp live separate from the browser, with it's own Dock icon. Some ways in which the official app is better: * The official app extends to the edges of the window, whereas the web app has a "window on a background" design, which takes up more space. * The official app has keyboard shortcuts. * The official app has better notifications.
  - robmcm 10y ago
    We used to do this with Fluid.app in the naughties.
    - provemewrong 10y ago
      I'm doing this currently with Chrome Apps.
  - ajslater 10y ago
    I discovered https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat A couple weeks ago. One thing it does better than the official app is that on Mac the red window button hides the window rather than terminating the process.
- eps 10y ago
  But, but... you get to run Facebook binaries on your desktop computer! Comes with a full access to everything, so it must be very exciting for at least one party involved.
ascorbic 10y ago
When I saw this I was excited that maybe I could finally switch from Telegram. But no, it's tethered. I don't want to have to always make sure my phone is charged and with signal. I really don't get it. I get they can't do it the telegram way, by storing plaintext on the server. However I don't get why they can't do it like iMessage and encrypt the messages with each registered device's key. Perhaps moxie can explain why they can't do this.
- xerophyte12932 10y ago
  This is what I love about fb messenger over whatsapp. You can use it on your pc even without your cellphone. This dependency on the mobile makes no sense at all. It kills half the usecase.
ksec 10y ago
Why does it not Support Windows 7? Isn't that like 70% of Windows Market?
pmlnr 10y ago
How about introducing open protocols instead?
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Vastly preferable of course, but that is not in the best interest of Facebook, so why would they? The goodwill (marketing) generated by doing so has to outweigh the loss of control (and income). It appears it doesn't, or they would have done it. The only other reason to adapt open standards and an open protocol would be government pressure and legislation in the US or the EU.
dewey 10y ago
Even if it's "just a wrapper" the native notifications are worth it for me. I really wish iMessage would have a web view like WhatsApp that you can just open on another computer though. Even if it's not a Mac.
xerophyte12932 10y ago
So what is the benefit of this over the Web version? Same UI, both need the internet, both have desktop notifications, both need your cellphone to be connected to the internet. Not to mention, no linux version
aluhut 10y ago
Well, at least it's not a Chrome Add-On. Still useless for me because of the tether to phone point. Now please Signal. Give me something we can all work with.
jrbapna 10y ago
I was excited when I saw the headline but the phone teathering is a deal breaker. I removed whatsapp from my phone precisely because it took up too much space, with all the photos and videos being shared daily. It's a shame really.. a desktop app would've been a great alternative
- idlemind 10y ago
  An app without tethering would be great, I agree. But to save space on your phone, it's easy to turn off automatic storage of media, on iOS this is under Settings > Chats > Save Incoming Media. I've had it turned off for a long time to stop my camera roll filling with meme pics.
  - jrbapna 10y ago
    Thanks
- delta1 10y ago
  > with all the photos and videos being shared daily Why not just turn off auto media download?
joe_fishfish 10y ago
... And there's STILL no official iPad version.
jeena 10y ago
Meh, no Linux support, so I'll still be using Viber even though my siblings in Germany and Switzerland always try to get me to install WhatsApp instead, appearantly it is super big there. Here in Sweden noone ever asked me to install it.
- mattlutze 10y ago
  It sounds on its face that it works the same as, or similar to, the web.whatsapp.com webapp. Runs locally in your browser. It talks to your phone (over websockets, I think?) if the computer/phone are on the same wifi network, and then the chats fire out/in through the phone as normal. That should work just fine for you, I'd imagine.
aiNohY6g 10y ago
1/ phone tethering is the price to pay for end-to-end encryption: the support of multiple devices is not compatible with perfect forward secrecy, as the former require the asynchronous push of messages to all devices while PFS requires synchronicity (at least some kind of, as explained in their white paper here: https://lobste.rs/s/sx2f0r/whatsapp_encryption_overview_technical_white_paper https://lobste.rs/s/sx2f0r/whatsapp_encryption_overview_tech... 2/ if you don't like the Desktop App (or are using Linux), you can use https://web.whatsapp.com/ https://web.whatsapp.com/ and/or the Chrome extension WhatsChrome https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatschrome/bgkodfmeijboinjdegggmkbkjfiagaan https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatschrome/bgkodf...
- raonyguimaraes 10y ago
  Or you can use Whatsie [1] a simple & beautiful desktop client for WhatsApp Web. https://github.com/Aluxian/Whatsie https://github.com/Aluxian/Whatsie
- rakoo 10y ago
  > PFS requires synchronicity No it doesn't. Multiple devices is a special case of multiple recipients, which the Signal protocol handles (and I presume Whatsapp does as well). See more details here (https://whispersystems.org/blog/private-groups/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/private-groups/) Now, that doesn't mean it already works in Signal/Whatsapp, because they have other constraints. But it's not PFS that prevents it.
- notinreallife 10y ago
  What did they use to make the desktop app, I wonder. Maybe _electron 1.0_?!?
  - kocsenc 10y ago
    They did use electron. Confirmed by viewing `/Applications/WhatsApp.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron*`
everyone 10y ago
An old friend of mine suggested I try out Viber or Whatsapp to contact her. I had a look at them, but they want full access to all the contacts on your phone, its all or nothing, you cant use either to communicate with select people. So I elected not to use them. Just gonna use email.
joeyspn 10y ago
Why is the app closing completely if I press 'x'? wouldn't be much better to stay in background mode like Slack does (well and many other chat clients)? It's annoying... I'll keep using my custom wrapper with NW.js (apparently this uses electron) until this behaviour is implemented...
- pablovidal85 10y ago
  For mac users there's ChitChat[0], it behaves as expected. In fact I'm not switching to the official WhatsApp desktop release until this issue is properly fixed. [0] https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat
  - bartvk 10y ago
    ChitChat is great but is not _exactly_ like a mac app. You can't drag it from desktop to desktop. No big thing though.
- Propen 10y ago
  pro tip: you can do cmd+h to hide all windows
miseg 10y ago
If I leave my job, can I "log out" of the app on my work machine without access to that machine?
- rgallagher27 10y ago
  Yes, you can log out of any web/desktop client from the mobile app
haphazardeous 10y ago
Since when it became fashionable to use a wrapper of your web site? "Because the app runs natively on your desktop, you'll have support for native desktop notifications, better keyboard shortcuts, and more." I think Firefox is perfectly capable of doing any of those. I just hate it someone comes up and says 'Look we built a native app' I'm sorry but no you haven't! If I wanted to use your web page I can do that I don't need you to wrap it and ship it as a native app. Disappointed.
- haphazardeous 10y ago
  This app is so native neither CMD + W nor CMD + SHIFT + W closes the Whatsapp window - yay!
  - dingo_bat 10y ago
    Alt+F4 works perfectly.
    - haphazardeous 10y ago
      You're using Windows, I believe?
      - dingo_bat 10y ago
        Yup.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Propen 10y ago
What's different compared to using nativefier on web.whatsapp.com? I've been using that for a while now
- flanbiscuit 10y ago
  My guess is that they took web.whatsapp.com and wrapped it in an Electron app and added a couple native desktop features. Not a lot of effort to do this on their end so I guess it's just another added value to the product. I'll continue just to use the website, I personally see no need for this.
a_imho 10y ago
the page is broken on Debian 8 / Iceweasel with ABE. Is it an outdated setup? Many times I feel people are fixing what is not broken to end up with something inferior.

312 points by andersonmat 10y ago

blackoil 10y ago

This is not an independent app. It is still tethered to the phone, and can't work without it :(

kawera 10y ago
Their servers do not store unencrypted messages so they need to come from the phone.
- jng 10y ago
  I guess they could do an "untethered" desktop version but they don't really want to. Solve syncing of history etc but it's doable. But they just love living in your pocket. It's all about owning you, and that's easier if they stay with you all the time.
  - sanjeetsuhag 10y ago
    I feel the same way. Just build an independent app already. Telegram did it well. What's stopping WhatsApp ?
    - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
      As kawera said two comments above yours: Their servers do not store unencrypted messages so they need to come from the phone. ---- That's why some people criticise Telegram: Their messages have to be stored unencrypted for their setup to work.
      - kawera 10y ago
        Exactly. Telegram's "Secret Conversations" are encrypted end-to-end but then they aren't synced (or even supported on desktop).
        newjersey 10y ago
        My workaround for this is to create a group chat. I only talk to two people on Signal but I've asked both of them to message in the group chat that I've made. Now, I can answer chat messages on my nexus 5, nexus 6, and nexus 7. (I built the apk from source for the Nexus 7. I wouldn't recommend this if you actually want secrecy. I'm not doing anything confidential so I am not too worried about targeted attempts.)
      - khedoros 10y ago
        What's stopping them from either providing a way to sync the key to other devices, or allow the device to register its own keys, and they just store a couple copies of the encrypted data? It seems like there should be ways to do it without storing unencrypted data.
      - dingo_bat 10y ago
        AFAIK Apple Message implements encryption and has independent clients. So I think the problem can be solved with some effort.
        neerdowell 10y ago
        Each device has its own key. Before a message is sent, the client grabs all the keys for each device associated with the account of the recipient, it then encrypts the message separately for each device and sends a separate encrypted copy for each device. This scheme has various weaknesses, eg. a rogue key could be associated with someone's account without their knowledge, and anyone who sends this person messages will therefore be sending a copy encrypted with the rogue key.
    - bikamonki 10y ago
      Monetization strategy is what's stopping Whatsapp. Eventually, there will be an official API so business can hook CRMs to clients' Whatsapp accounts. However, FB is first trying that with Messenger API/bots. I assume Whatsapp API/bots comes next. FB did not pay billions for the most popular chat app just to let 1 billion people use it for free forever...
      - lucb1e 10y ago
        Free? Every WhatsApp user paid Facebook on day one with the contents of their address book and how frequently one person contacts another. This is of huge value if your business model is exactly to gather this kind of data.
        lunula 10y ago
        All the talk about encryption and privacy seems to ignore this basic point. Association can be dangerous and this does not protect people from exposing themselves in that way.
        bikamonki 10y ago
        True, but to be honest I am not sure that alone is worth 22B, in particular when you have to show shareholders how you plan to make that money back. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-28/facebook-s-22-billion-whatsapp-deal-buys-10-million-in-sales http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-28/facebook-s...
    - raimue 10y ago
      Telegram also only shares unencrypted chats across multiple devices.
  - kawera 10y ago
    How could then sync end-to-end encrypted messages?
    - kobayashi 10y ago
      Same way iMessage does
      - dmix 10y ago
        The same way Signal does is probably a better example.
      - danieldk 10y ago
        Keep in mind that Whatsapp still supports pretty old devices (Nokia S40/60), where you may not want to encrypt every image N times. Edit: remove some stuff.
        kccqzy 10y ago
        Actually iMessage doesn't encrypt each image N times. It encrypts once, upload it to a server, then encrypts the image encryption key N times.
    - motoboi 10y ago
      Sender encrypts same message several times, one for each receiver device. Store them the same way they store today. When the first device picks up the message, mark as delivered, when the user reads it, mark as read. Something along those lines, I guess. EDIT: message is encrypted, but not it's metadata, as the server must know where it came from and where it is going to.
      - camillomiller 10y ago
        Considering how much information about a subject is inferrable by means of metadata only, I'd say this is a much better solution, security wise.
    - 10y ago
- leesalminen 10y ago
  Couldn't they store encrypted messages on their servers but not store any keys? They'd just need a mechanism to privately share they key between devices (Bluetooth pairing)?
  - spacehome 10y ago
    Or every device has a different key, a la iMessage, which in my opinion is better so long as everyone has Apple devices.
cuchoi 10y ago
If Whatsapp had a desktop app, I would use it for almost everything. Right now my main way of communicating while I am in my laptop in Google Hangouts. It would be also very useful for the few times that I run out of battery.
funkyy 10y ago
Just when I started using web app my gut told me that Facebook wont allow WhatsApp to directly compete with messenger and Facebooks messaging platform. If both would allow similar technology they not only would be fighting over the same market, but would be easy target to anti-monopoly bodies.

jeffjose 10y ago

No linux version. I was almost convinced that this was going to be another Electron app (after slack went that route)

alexandrerond 10y ago
Telegram forever ahead...
- dmix 10y ago
  Minus the whole end-to-end encryption thing... which is still missing in their Linux gui client.
  - giancarlostoro 10y ago
    There are alternate clients that support it on Linux. "Cutegram" http://aseman.co/en/products/cutegram/ http://aseman.co/en/products/cutegram/
  - devishard 10y ago
    And from all their other clients, if the industry assessments of their so-called encrypted protocol are to be believed.
kawera 10y ago
It is an Electron app from what I can see on OSX (Electron/React Native/Mantle/Squirrel). No voice calls though.
tim333 10y ago
I recommend Franz (http://meetfranz.com/ http://meetfranz.com/). Does Whatsapp, works on Linux, mac, pc. Supports Slack, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe and Skype.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

Tiktaalik 10y ago

Nice. Maybe with this I can convince my friends to move over to WhatsApp from Google Hangouts. The lack of desktop app support for Hangouts has been driving me nuts.

tsycho 10y ago
You could just open hangouts.google.com in a browser window, why do you need a native app? Also, Hangouts would not need phone tethering
- Tiktaalik 10y ago
  It's incredibly frustrating to find the one tab/window you have open to hangouts when you have dozens of windows/tabs open.
Quiark 10y ago
WhatsApp has (proper) end-to-end encryption which is IMO a big win over Hangouts.
witty_username 10y ago
Why do you need desktop app support for Hangouts? You can install the extension.
- ascorbic 10y ago
  Because I can't cmd-tab to it. Because it brings every Chrome window to front if I just want to read a message. Because it floats on top of Chrome whenever it's open. Because I can't easily move it between monitors, or to a different part of the screen. It's also really rubbish at uploading files. Why can't I drag and drop? And how about search? You're Google ffs. Why do I have to go to Gmail to search Hangouts, instead of allowing search in, oh I don't know, how about in Hangouts? Some of these may have changed since I abandoned Hangouts last year for Telegram, which still has the best desktop experience.
  - 10y ago

shoggs 10y ago

This just seems to be exactly like the Whatsapp Web running in the browser. I don't understand what benefit comes from the native client.

Tiktaalik 10y ago
With a desktop app you can easily and quickly command-tab to it if you want to use it. In contrast with a web app it's often awkward and time consuming to find the window/tab of the web app you're running amongst your other browser windows/tabs.
- jackmodern 10y ago
  Try fluidapp, solves that problem very quickly.
- takno 10y ago
  Chrome has that sorted already on android, where you can run up a site with a home screen link, different icon and separate listing in the task list. Given the work they've recently put in on full screen mode on desktop it looks like they're maybe a couple of versions away from having something similar on desktop
  - tuxracer 10y ago
    Actually they're removing it on Android even :(
    - nsgi 10y ago
      Really? Thought support for that feature was increasing with the web app manifests. Do you have a source?
    - takno 10y ago
      They're actively adding features. It's a little more complex than it used to be with the manifest, and needing a service worker and encryption for a lot of features, but it's all still there

syn_33 10y ago

Still tethered to a phone... i'll just keep using this https://github.com/Aluxian/WhatsApp-Desktop https://github.com/Aluxian/WhatsApp-Desktop

sanjeetsuhag 10y ago
Of course its still tethered. Does the app you linked bypass the tethering ? I fail to see the benefits offered by the app you linked over the official client.
lucb1e 10y ago
Yup. Meanwhile I'll be using this https://telegram.org https://telegram.org

Strom 10y ago

Windows 8 minimum? Is this an UWP app or what's the reasoning here? Edit: I downloaded and successfully launched this on Windows 7. It seems like a standard Electron app. Now I wonder if the Windows 8 requirement is purely for tech support reasons, or if there's some specific feature that would fail on Windows 7.

Touche 10y ago
Microsoft doesn't support Windows 7 any more, why should WhatsApp?
- tmottabr 10y ago
  But windows 7 is still support by microsoft. Extended support goes until 2020.
- NamTaf 10y ago
  Because they bill it for use at work and the overwhelming majority of businesses are using Win7 there.
- Strom 10y ago
  You are misinformed. Microsoft even supports Vista, not to mention 7. [1] In addition, if XP support deadline extensions are anything to go by, then these Windows 7 end-of-support dates will get moved several times until they stick. Beyond that, Windows 7 remains by far the most popular Windows version, exceeding the combined market share of Windows 8, Windows 8.1 & Windows 10. [2][3] Unrelated to market share & OS updates, there's the technical question. There aren't many Win32 APIs which are present in Windows 8, but not Windows 7. Thus it's not that likely that Windows 7 wouldn't be supported by a Win32 app (which this is), unless they go out of their way to make it so. [1] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle [2] http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp [3] https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share...
  - 10y ago

_wmd 10y ago

Is anyone qualified to comment on what this will do with my OS X address book and similar data should I open it? edit: on the plus side, looks like it's just their web app repackaged using Electron. Still not sure what all these helpers are for though

kawera 10y ago
From what I can see, it didn't access either my OSX Address Book or my Android Contacts.
yaegers 10y ago
Since it "just" mirrors your phone it shouldn't access your OSX address book. But since most people use iCloud to sync that address book with their Mac and their phone its moot. If you open WhatsApp on your phone, it will take a trip through your contacts and upload everything to their servers. Which, I still maintain, is stupid and unnecessary and the numer one reason why I never bothered with WhatsApp. It's an IM client. So let me put my numer in and that's it. If I want to use it, I probably already know the people that also use it. So if they in turn also hae uploaded their number, I could search for it and add it. Have them confirm out connection and chat away. There is no need to grab all my contacts' information without their consent.

Longhanks 10y ago

I hate Websites selling themselves as "Desktop apps". I'd much rather have a native interface, me and my battery would say thank you for that.

colordrops 10y ago

This is nearly identical to the WeChat desktop app. Looks like Whatsapp did some "innovation arbitrage".

tfranco 10y ago

Is this a rip off from ChitChat? https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat

rdtsc 10y ago
> Is this a rip off from ChitChat? White background with a list of users to the side. Isn't that a ripoff of well, half of messaging apps.
tszming 10y ago
Have you ever used the "WhatsApp Web"?
molmalo 10y ago
Well, the very first thing in the readme for that project says: "A Mac app wrapper around WhatsApp's web client, WhatsApp Web. https://web.whatsapp.com/" https://web.whatsapp.com/"
- sidneys 10y ago
  Which the official App also is.

tostitos1979 10y ago

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
shliachtx 10y ago
Not an excuse, but: A) WhatsApp is a true messaging app. Once the messages are delivered, they are deleted from the server, so you need a primary device that stores the messages. B) It currently uses a phone number as identification, in order to create a true desktop app you would need another method (unless you use a landline or dumbphone phone number for desktop as well).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- cft 10y ago
  Messages are not deleted from the server. They are probably stored there in the encryped form. When I open the web version of WhatsApp, same images and the message history that i have on my phone get downloaded there. I highly doubt that they rely on my phone as the only master storage of that data and upload all images into the web version from it?
  - ars 10y ago
    Actually yes, that is exactly what they do: Download everything from the phone.
    - cft 10y ago
      Including 2MB images in the conversation? Has someone verified this by looking at the traffic?

Julio-Guerra 10y ago

It seems to be nothing more than https://web.whatsapp.com/ https://web.whatsapp.com/ in a web view. So I can't really see interest.

micheljansen 10y ago
I previously created my own "native" app from this by wrapping https://web.whatsapp.com https://web.whatsapp.com in an Electron wrapper so that I could have WhatsApp live separate from the browser, with it's own Dock icon. Some ways in which the official app is better: * The official app extends to the edges of the window, whereas the web app has a "window on a background" design, which takes up more space. * The official app has keyboard shortcuts. * The official app has better notifications.
- robmcm 10y ago
  We used to do this with Fluid.app in the naughties.
  - provemewrong 10y ago
    I'm doing this currently with Chrome Apps.
- ajslater 10y ago
  I discovered https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat A couple weeks ago. One thing it does better than the official app is that on Mac the red window button hides the window rather than terminating the process.
eps 10y ago
But, but... you get to run Facebook binaries on your desktop computer! Comes with a full access to everything, so it must be very exciting for at least one party involved.

ascorbic 10y ago

When I saw this I was excited that maybe I could finally switch from Telegram. But no, it's tethered. I don't want to have to always make sure my phone is charged and with signal. I really don't get it. I get they can't do it the telegram way, by storing plaintext on the server. However I don't get why they can't do it like iMessage and encrypt the messages with each registered device's key. Perhaps moxie can explain why they can't do this.

xerophyte12932 10y ago
This is what I love about fb messenger over whatsapp. You can use it on your pc even without your cellphone. This dependency on the mobile makes no sense at all. It kills half the usecase.

ksec 10y ago

Why does it not Support Windows 7? Isn't that like 70% of Windows Market?

pmlnr 10y ago

How about introducing open protocols instead?

Freak_NL 10y ago
Vastly preferable of course, but that is not in the best interest of Facebook, so why would they? The goodwill (marketing) generated by doing so has to outweigh the loss of control (and income). It appears it doesn't, or they would have done it. The only other reason to adapt open standards and an open protocol would be government pressure and legislation in the US or the EU.

dewey 10y ago

Even if it's "just a wrapper" the native notifications are worth it for me. I really wish iMessage would have a web view like WhatsApp that you can just open on another computer though. Even if it's not a Mac.

xerophyte12932 10y ago

So what is the benefit of this over the Web version? Same UI, both need the internet, both have desktop notifications, both need your cellphone to be connected to the internet. Not to mention, no linux version

aluhut 10y ago

Well, at least it's not a Chrome Add-On. Still useless for me because of the tether to phone point. Now please Signal. Give me something we can all work with.

jrbapna 10y ago

I was excited when I saw the headline but the phone teathering is a deal breaker. I removed whatsapp from my phone precisely because it took up too much space, with all the photos and videos being shared daily. It's a shame really.. a desktop app would've been a great alternative

idlemind 10y ago
An app without tethering would be great, I agree. But to save space on your phone, it's easy to turn off automatic storage of media, on iOS this is under Settings > Chats > Save Incoming Media. I've had it turned off for a long time to stop my camera roll filling with meme pics.
- jrbapna 10y ago
  Thanks
delta1 10y ago
> with all the photos and videos being shared daily Why not just turn off auto media download?

joe_fishfish 10y ago

... And there's STILL no official iPad version.

jeena 10y ago

Meh, no Linux support, so I'll still be using Viber even though my siblings in Germany and Switzerland always try to get me to install WhatsApp instead, appearantly it is super big there. Here in Sweden noone ever asked me to install it.

mattlutze 10y ago
It sounds on its face that it works the same as, or similar to, the web.whatsapp.com webapp. Runs locally in your browser. It talks to your phone (over websockets, I think?) if the computer/phone are on the same wifi network, and then the chats fire out/in through the phone as normal. That should work just fine for you, I'd imagine.

aiNohY6g 10y ago

1/ phone tethering is the price to pay for end-to-end encryption: the support of multiple devices is not compatible with perfect forward secrecy, as the former require the asynchronous push of messages to all devices while PFS requires synchronicity (at least some kind of, as explained in their white paper here: https://lobste.rs/s/sx2f0r/whatsapp_encryption_overview_technical_white_paper https://lobste.rs/s/sx2f0r/whatsapp_encryption_overview_tech... 2/ if you don't like the Desktop App (or are using Linux), you can use https://web.whatsapp.com/ https://web.whatsapp.com/ and/or the Chrome extension WhatsChrome https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatschrome/bgkodfmeijboinjdegggmkbkjfiagaan https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatschrome/bgkodf...

raonyguimaraes 10y ago
Or you can use Whatsie [1] a simple & beautiful desktop client for WhatsApp Web. https://github.com/Aluxian/Whatsie https://github.com/Aluxian/Whatsie
rakoo 10y ago
> PFS requires synchronicity No it doesn't. Multiple devices is a special case of multiple recipients, which the Signal protocol handles (and I presume Whatsapp does as well). See more details here (https://whispersystems.org/blog/private-groups/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/private-groups/) Now, that doesn't mean it already works in Signal/Whatsapp, because they have other constraints. But it's not PFS that prevents it.
notinreallife 10y ago
What did they use to make the desktop app, I wonder. Maybe _electron 1.0_?!?
- kocsenc 10y ago
  They did use electron. Confirmed by viewing `/Applications/WhatsApp.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron*`

everyone 10y ago

An old friend of mine suggested I try out Viber or Whatsapp to contact her. I had a look at them, but they want full access to all the contacts on your phone, its all or nothing, you cant use either to communicate with select people. So I elected not to use them. Just gonna use email.

joeyspn 10y ago

Why is the app closing completely if I press 'x'? wouldn't be much better to stay in background mode like Slack does (well and many other chat clients)? It's annoying... I'll keep using my custom wrapper with NW.js (apparently this uses electron) until this behaviour is implemented...

pablovidal85 10y ago
For mac users there's ChitChat[0], it behaves as expected. In fact I'm not switching to the official WhatsApp desktop release until this issue is properly fixed. [0] https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat
- bartvk 10y ago
  ChitChat is great but is not _exactly_ like a mac app. You can't drag it from desktop to desktop. No big thing though.
Propen 10y ago
pro tip: you can do cmd+h to hide all windows

miseg 10y ago

If I leave my job, can I "log out" of the app on my work machine without access to that machine?

rgallagher27 10y ago
Yes, you can log out of any web/desktop client from the mobile app

haphazardeous 10y ago

Since when it became fashionable to use a wrapper of your web site? "Because the app runs natively on your desktop, you'll have support for native desktop notifications, better keyboard shortcuts, and more." I think Firefox is perfectly capable of doing any of those. I just hate it someone comes up and says 'Look we built a native app' I'm sorry but no you haven't! If I wanted to use your web page I can do that I don't need you to wrap it and ship it as a native app. Disappointed.

haphazardeous 10y ago
This app is so native neither CMD + W nor CMD + SHIFT + W closes the Whatsapp window - yay!
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  Alt+F4 works perfectly.
  - haphazardeous 10y ago
    You're using Windows, I believe?
    - dingo_bat 10y ago
      Yup.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Propen 10y ago

What's different compared to using nativefier on web.whatsapp.com? I've been using that for a while now

flanbiscuit 10y ago
My guess is that they took web.whatsapp.com and wrapped it in an Electron app and added a couple native desktop features. Not a lot of effort to do this on their end so I guess it's just another added value to the product. I'll continue just to use the website, I personally see no need for this.

a_imho 10y ago

the page is broken on Debian 8 / Iceweasel with ABE. Is it an outdated setup? Many times I feel people are fixing what is not broken to end up with something inferior.