Free WhatsApp client for Windows and OS X has been released

The most popular mobile messenger in the world now allows you to communicate without leaving your computer, without getting your mobile phone out of your pocket. WhatsApp / Facebook has released a desktop application that runs on Windows 8+ and OS X 10.9+.

Thus, WhatsApp joins other instant messengers that are running on the computer of a communicative PC user: it is Skype, Viber, Slack, etc.

After installing WhatsApp on a PC, it will offer to scan the QR code from a mobile phone with the application running (see the Settings menu - WhatsApp Web ).

The desktop client works the same as the WhatsApp Web web application , but does not need a browser. Otherwise, there is no difference: all messages are synchronized and duplicated on the computer and the phone.

WhatsApp messenger came out in 2009 for iOS, then versions for Android and Windows Phone appeared. Since January 2016, the program no longer requires a paid subscription of $ 0.99 per year. Daily WhatsApp transmits more than 50 billion text messages , the number of users has recently reached 1 billion people .

Since April 2016, WhatsApp has implemented full end-to-end encryption of sessions by default.



Encrypted messages are marked with a corresponding lock icon. Unlike other instant messengers, WhatsApp does not store messages on the server using a rather unusual infrastructure under FreeBSD / Erlang.

Unfortunately, the native WhatsApp application does not function under Linux yet. If necessary, the Franz universal messenger for Linux or Windows is suitable for this . It supports Whatsapp, Slack, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe and Skype.