WhatsApp has been in the news a lot recently thanks to the changes for their Privacy Policy, which is essentially for the purpose to send more data to Facebook. Thanks to this news there have been people wondering if they should Ditch WhatsApp or not. If one does decide to switch away from WhatsApp then they may want some options for a good alternative to consider. Well then you found the right article because in this article and attached video I’ll give you 5 different alternatives to WhatsApp and you can decide which one will work best for you.
Alright first, I’m going to do a brief rundown of what has happened to WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy and then you can decide whether or not it makes sense to you to consider an alternative.
WhatsApp sent notifications to its users about a change in their Privacy Policy which will let it send data to Facebook. They also made it so agreement is mandatory, you either accept it or stop using WhatsApp.
So what kind of data will be sent to Facebook? Does this mean Facebook can read my WhatsApp messages?
No. This does not change the encryption of conversations with your friends or family. Conversations in WhatsApp are encrypted end-to-end, meaning not even WhatsApp itself can access them. However, by using WhatsApp you may be sharing with it your usage data, as well as your phone’s unique identifier, and other types of metadata. These may be linked to your identity and it’s this data the privacy policy stipulates that you must agree, that it can be shared with Facebook.
Here’s an excerpt from the new Privacy Policy about this:
“We collect device and connection-specific information when you install, access, or use our Services. This includes information such as hardware model, operating system information, battery level, signal strength, app version, browser information, mobile network, connection information (including phone number, mobile operator or ISP), language and time zone, IP address, device operations information, and identifiers (including identifiers unique to Facebook Company Products associated with the same device or account).”
It’s probably worth noting that there are differences for businesses. Businesses can choose to store the data on Facebook’s servers or not to and if they choose to store it there then it seems as though that it could give Facebook the ability to read those messages. So while conversations between friends and families will still be encrypted, messages with businesses . . . maybe not.
5 Alternatives to WhatsApp
Here are 5 alternatives for you to consider if you decide to switch away from WhatsApp. These alternatives are listed in no particular order.
Video Timestamps:
- 02:49 = Signal privacy focused messenger
- 05:57 = Element Messenger powered by the Matrix protocol (one of my favorites)
- 10:58 = Telegram but this one might not be a good option after all.
- 13:51 = Session, an interesting fork of Signal
- 16:21 = Threema, a paid/premium messaging app
- 18:08 = My Thoughts on these alternatives
Most of these options are worth considering and if you choose to give Element a try then I suggest checking out the “Beginner’s Guide: How To Get Started With Element & Matrix” here on Front Page Linux.
