WhatsApp crash: Are decentralized blockchain messengers a real alternative?
Centralized communication apps share one crucial feature: They crash often. Cointelegraph investigates to see if decentralization can offer a solution. Since the introduction of ICQ — the progenitor of online chat applications — the expectation from instant messaging (IM) services has never changed. Users simply want them to work, which apparently turned into a tall order, given the frequent downtimes most popular chat apps experience nowadays. Launched the same year as Bitcoin (BTC), WhatsApp is one of the most widely used chat apps on the planet. Owned by Meta (the stable of which also....
Related News
As WhatsApp goes down once again, there are a number of alternative platforms that are popular alternatives in the cryptocurrency space. Some two billion WhatsApp users were left without service on Oct. 25 as the biggest messaging application worldwide went offline. Meta, the owner of Facebook and WhatsApp, is yet to clarify what led to the outage.Users took to social media platforms like Twitter to share hilarious memes about the outage, with many flocking to alternative social media platforms to find out if they were alone in their lack of service. A similar situation took place in....
While blockchain messengers stand to mitigate many of the privacy issues posed by their centralized counterparts, they still have their fair share of unignorable issues. As people all over the globe have become increasingly aware of their privacy rights and how they are constantly being violated by various prominent social media platforms, the need for tangible, decentralized alternatives has continued to grow rapidly.For perspective, in 2019, Facebook was ordered to pay a mind-boggling $5-billion fine by the United States Federal Trade Commission for improperly acquiring private data of....
WhatsApp has decided to turn on encryption for all messages. Will this lead to more private conversations or have they just opened a can of worms? What is encryption and how will it work for WhatsApp users? On April 5, 2016, WhatsApp announced on its blog that they were going to start providing full end-to-end encryption. The announcement says: “The idea is simple: when you send a message, the only person who can read it is the person or group chat that you send that message to. No one can see inside that message. Not cybercriminals. Not hackers. Not oppressive regimes. Not even us.....
Indian E-Commerce site FreeCharge has partnered with WhatsApp to provide payment services directly through the WhatsApp chat application. FreeCharge made the announcement on May 20th, 2016 that they were adding their new feature to the messaging app to enable payment services. WhatsApp users must have a certain setting approved for the feature to work....
Messenger and WhatsApp are known for aggregating user data and selling it for profit to advertisers. This company brings an encrypted messenger to protect the data. Oxen is a privacy-focused platform built on top of a proof-of-stake (PoS) network. It has also built a secure and anonymous messaging platform Session.The company’s chief technical officer Kee Jefferys talked to Cointelegraph about its platform, its technology and how important privacy and data protection are for the end-user.1. Hello! Tell us about Oxen and Session.OXEN is a private, stakeable cryptocurrency. The Oxen token....