Facebook to buy WhatsApp for $16 billion

[kryss]

Good call. Better not mention that kind of thing on the internet. Oh wait...

[J0e Musashi]

This is strictly in connection with Monster Hunter commodities Steven.

[kryss]

Demon drugs and bowguns. Nice.

[Deuteros]

People have been nagging me to install this. I'm not a Facebook user (or of any other social media, for that matter) and, to some extent, I value my privacy.

Is WhatsApp still a decent application that does what it says on the tin or has it joined the dark side?

[wakka]

The dark side in what sense? It's an IM application. Add your friends and message them. Information you write is not public, however be aware that the NSA are reading it and they are disgusted by some of the things you've written.

[Deuteros]

What I meant was requiring abusive permissions, wanting to have access to what's stored on my smartphone, trying to link itself to any other accounts I may have for other services, pushing Facebook at every possible opportunity, etc.

[charlesr]

I don't get why anyone would use it if they have free texts. It's not like a it's free-app. You have to pay (not much) each year. I tried it and found it a bit of a mess.

[EvilBoris]

You can send picture messages between it and do group chats and stuff you can't do in texts. I don't bother with it myself as most people I know have iPhones and that has iMessage built in which does much the same thing

[Brad]

Old skool users don't have to pay to use it I've never been billed. barely use it though. Viber does the job better.

[VR46]

I use it a fair bit, it's free for the first year then 69p a year thereafter, it's for texts, images and videos Charles - actually I think you can send .mp3's via it my daughter said the other day. Probably why it's popular with the youth.

It works really well and is probably the best app of it's kind in the west, hence FB bought it.

Pretty sure FB have been told they can't spam up users purely signed up with Whatsapp in any way or form.

[stevie vip 99]

Yeah great app as mentioned above.
I get free text messages but I use this for pictures and videos. Super app

[Brad]

If mms was bundled there'd be no need for this but it rarely if ever is these days.

[wakka]

Not sure I agree with that. Many people find the groups feature very useful (some people are in huge groups of 100+ people), the app can be used over WiFi when there is no network coverage (unlike SMS), and the delivery speed is much faster than SMS. And it also has read receipts, unlike SMS.

It's a lot better than texting.

[Brad]

Oh yeah forgot about that feature. Cool.

[charlesr]

I also expected it to save your messages (being a subscription service), but it doesn't. Lose your phone - lose your messages. And you can't use it on two devices (different number per device). At least Facebook and Google+ keep all your message history and you can use them on whatever you want. I guess my needs are different.