Yes, I am one of them. Although I’ve been putting it off by not using WhatsApp, I guess the day has come when I will explain to everyone the reasons that led me to leave the popular messaging app at the end of 2019. try to resume this 2022 without success.

And it still seems unbelievable to me that such a popular app and an app with Meta behind it keeps making mistakes on one side. slow evolution. And yes, I know there’s been a lot of news lately, but it’s not enough. At least in my opinion, and in my opinion, relative to many others.

No, the privacy debate was not a reason

Considering past privacy scandals with lawsuits like Cambridge Analytica, there are those who claim in a very reputable manner that they don’t want to transfer any kind of data to Meta. It’s not even WhatsApp’s intention to share its data with Facebook, which it regrets. And the second happened when I decided to leave the application and move to Telegram.

Certainly Telegram is not a privacy champion and is losing the street with WhatsApp due to the lack of end-to-end encryption that WhatsApp has on non-private chats. However, there were other reasons that pushed me to change. the main thing tired of useless talk with all my love, with people who neither come nor go.

I’ve been annoyed by the typical messages from people I know on WhatsApp who drop by every X hour to say hello to pretend to be interested. It will be a foolish act for many, but I hate hypocrisy. They don’t care, nor me. everybody is happy and without peers.

While it was a compelling reason, it was strength. Get features that WhatsApp doesn’t have. Be cross-platform, cloud backup, edit messages, delete messages without leaving a trace or send uncompressed files up to 2GB.

The vast majority of my usual contacts already had Telegram, and although they knew me and continued to get to know me more using WhatsApp, they did not hesitate to contact me via Telegram. And those who don’t always have other ways of communication that I keep active On networks like Instagram or Twitter. And if it’s urgent, if it’s a call, this function is still for that and is actually appreciated even with WhatsApp.

Why did I use WhatsApp again?

While I felt pretty comfortable with what I mentioned in the previous paragraph, at first I thought it would be more difficult to remove WhatsApp from mobile due to social pressure. Again, As a tech lover, I couldn’t ignore one of the most popular apps..

In fact, it was almost necessary for me, as I work as an editor in tech media. keep up to date with all the news. Added to the occasional WhatsApp group this forced me to reinstall the app. I hadn’t said before that the laziness caused by these groups was also a reason to leave, but the truth is that when I returned they were useful for information without interacting.

An important aspect of this return to WhatsApp is, complete disable notifications. I tried to stay in touch with people I knew found Telegram boring, but it remained my main communication app. The return to the Meta app came with the condition of being a secondary app, and I just popped in if I wanted (and remember) to see what was going on in my chats.

When I returned, I continued to notice significant shortcomings.

Back on WhatsApp, I could witness many functions that weren’t there before were already implemented and others included along the way, but there are still a few. conflict points preventing me from getting it as main app again. And look, I wanted to try.

Still not multi-platform

Yes, I know it’s possible to use WhatsApp on a computer, WhatsApp Web or desktop app. However, since it is still very dependent on the mobile phone, one must always be aware that the session does not expire, and above all, without using it on two mobile phones.

I know the vast majority of users only have one smartphone. Again, I always have several terminals for my workIs it the ones I’ve analyzed for a review or my iPhone 13 Pro Max and Google Pixel 6 Pro, which I’ve moved between so I don’t miss iOS and Android?

Full Being on horseback between two mobile operating systems on WhatsApp is a big problem. Not being able to use the account on both mobiles forces me to log into the terminal one at a time and often doesn’t make up for me. WhatsApp sets a time limit on which you can sign in on mobile devices, after which you cannot switch your account to another device before a certain amount of time has passed.

I can’t choose where I want to backup

In accordance with the above, transferring chats from iOS to Android or vice versa is a real adventure and requires restoring the device every time, something that is not possible and this always makes me lose chats. Telegram offers a copy on their own servers that keep your chats at all times, while WhatsApp only lets you do this in the Google Drive cloud (on Android) and iCloud (on iOS).

While it’s understandable that storing all the chats of millions of people could be a major economic and infrastructure issue for WhatsApp, I think it would be much less of an issue. Ability to choose an alternative system for backups. Be it a cloud available on both Android and iOS, or a possible local copy that you can then take to other devices.

Having your phone number public still seems like a delay to me

I acknowledge and understand that the phone number is required to create a WhatsApp account and stay connected as such, happens on many other platforms and Telegram itself. However, I don’t quite understand this I have to give my phone to be found. With friends or family, that’s fine, but not so much with other people or entities I have to contact via WhatsApp for a particular reason and I don’t want them to call me.

While possible in other applications create user number in itself it serves to deliver to another person and to communicate with you, there is no such option in WhatsApp. And to be honest, I see this as a setback at a time when the app is no longer just used for personal matters, but also for communication with professionals, schoolchildren and companies.

Thus, to this day, WhatsApp is still on my devices. It’s my passion and job that demands it of me to keep up with their progress, write their innovations or make user manuals. However, if earlier it was already a secondary application, now it is almost tertiary.