5 ms·

I'm not familiar with WhatsApp, but from their front page blog article[1], it sounds like they could be at loggerheads with Google over privacy/advertising. You

I'm not familiar with WhatsApp, but from their front page blog article[1], it sounds like they could be at loggerheads with Google over privacy/advertising. You can't buy an ideologue. [1] http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/06/why-we-dont-sell-ads/ http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/06/why-we-dont-sell-...

notatoad 14y ago
You can buy an ideologue, that's no problem. You can't buy a successful ideologue.
mtgx 14y ago
I know the Android app is free (at least in the first year). Is it also ad-free?
- trailfox 14y ago
  No ads.
shmerl 14y ago
Whatsapp has several severe problems. Firstly it's proliferating non interoperable instant messaging networks. While it uses XMPP underneath, it modifies it in an incompatible fashion, and can't communicate with XMPP compliant clients and naturally it's not federated with any XMPP networks, so it reverses the point of XMPP completely, while using it. Secondly, that it was created to exploit people's laziness - i.e. it skips registration step (one time thing) presenting it as a "convenience feature", but it does it at the cost of sacrificing security (i.e. it offers no way to choose user ID and password, instead of that it uses hardcoded information derived from the phone hardware ID), obviously not letting the user know about this downside. So it's a wicked trick which is used to attract unaware users.
- conradfr 14y ago
  Registration step is huge and annoying. I had to add my friends in ICQ, then MSN, then Facebook, then Skype, then Google+ (well no, not this one ...). I use Whatsapp once per month and I'm not even sure what it does or how it does it. I just know I can send group messages to everyone in my contact list who have it and it WORKS.
  - shmerl 14y ago
    "Huge and annoying" one time deal, which later allows you changing your password and also allows you choosing the ID of your liking, so you'd appear to your contacts with some recognizable name, and not as some numeric #########@whatsapp.com When you sign up for e-mail, do you think it's normal to skip the registration step and to give you some random ID and password? Why is IM any different? Also, do you think it's normal for your e-mail ID to be tied to one device, or you'd expect to be able to access and read / send it from multiple devices / computers? Why should IM be any different? That's what XMPP is about. Whatsapp tries to create a crippled service instead, but somehow manages to wrap it as a "convenience".

notatoad 14y ago

You can buy an ideologue, that's no problem. You can't buy a successful ideologue.

mtgx 14y ago

I know the Android app is free (at least in the first year). Is it also ad-free?

trailfox 14y ago
No ads.

shmerl 14y ago

Whatsapp has several severe problems. Firstly it's proliferating non interoperable instant messaging networks. While it uses XMPP underneath, it modifies it in an incompatible fashion, and can't communicate with XMPP compliant clients and naturally it's not federated with any XMPP networks, so it reverses the point of XMPP completely, while using it. Secondly, that it was created to exploit people's laziness - i.e. it skips registration step (one time thing) presenting it as a "convenience feature", but it does it at the cost of sacrificing security (i.e. it offers no way to choose user ID and password, instead of that it uses hardcoded information derived from the phone hardware ID), obviously not letting the user know about this downside. So it's a wicked trick which is used to attract unaware users.

conradfr 14y ago
Registration step is huge and annoying. I had to add my friends in ICQ, then MSN, then Facebook, then Skype, then Google+ (well no, not this one ...). I use Whatsapp once per month and I'm not even sure what it does or how it does it. I just know I can send group messages to everyone in my contact list who have it and it WORKS.
- shmerl 14y ago
  "Huge and annoying" one time deal, which later allows you changing your password and also allows you choosing the ID of your liking, so you'd appear to your contacts with some recognizable name, and not as some numeric #########@whatsapp.com When you sign up for e-mail, do you think it's normal to skip the registration step and to give you some random ID and password? Why is IM any different? Also, do you think it's normal for your e-mail ID to be tied to one device, or you'd expect to be able to access and read / send it from multiple devices / computers? Why should IM be any different? That's what XMPP is about. Whatsapp tries to create a crippled service instead, but somehow manages to wrap it as a "convenience".