Google announced today that it will stop counting your WhatsApp backups on Google Drive against your storage quota. Users that sign up for a Google account receive 15GB of free storage, however, rather large backups of your WhatsApp media history can eat up into that rather quickly.

Under this new agreement, while your WhatsApp backups will be accessible to you on your Goole Drive, they will no longer take up any of your personal space on Google Drive. Google did mention that any WhatsApp backups that have not been updated in more than a year will automatically be removed from storage.

This new policy is expected to into effect for all users on November 12, 2018, though some users may see the quota benefits earlier. To avoid the loss of any backups, Google recommends that people manually back up WhatsApp before November 12, 2018.

This decision only affects Android users of WhatsApp as iOS backups are stored in Apple's iCloud account.

READ MORE TechRadar:

WhatsApp is set to make a major change by charging users for the first time.

The changes will affect users of the WhatsApp for Business version of the popular messaging app that is a bit sluggish in replying to messages.

The WhatsApp Business API will allow businesses to respond to messages from users for free over an initial 24 hour period. 

However, users will then incur costs for any messages sent after this time, with late messages charged via a fixed rate by country per message.

WhatsApp for Business charges

WhatsApp says that the service can be used in a number of different areas for business customers, such as send shipping confirmations, appointment reminders or event tickets.

Business users could also use the service for speedy customer support replies, and send notifications directly to individual users.

The consumer-facing version of WhatsApp has around 1.5 billion users worldwide, with WhatsApp for Business some way behind with just three million users signed up since its launch in September 2017.

"We will bring more businesses onto WhatsApp over a period of time," WhatsApp said in a blog post announcing the news. "To do so, we will work directly with a few hundred businesses and a select number of companies that specialize in managing customer communications."

READ MORE:

The Indian government has asked messaging platform WhatsApp to take steps to prevent the spread of fake news on its app after several people have been lynched in the country. The Ministry of Electronics and IT has cited the killings in states like Assam, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tripura and West Bengal as the reason behind this directive.

Over the past few weeks, several images, videos and audio files are being circulated on WhatsApp accusing people of being child abductors and this has resulted in several innocent people being lynched. In recent news, a 24-year-old man from Nashik sent his cousin’s image along with a voice note alleging that he was a Child lifter.

As per reports, over 31 people have been killed in the country this year by mobs after fake messages had spread on WhatsApp claiming that these were child abductors.

In its statement, the ministry has said that “While the law and order machinery is taking steps to apprehend the culprits, the abuse of platforms like WhatsApp for repeated circulation of such provocative content is equally a matter of deep concern.”

The statement further added, “Deep disapproval of such developments has been conveyed to the senior management of the WhatsApp and they have been advised that necessary remedial measures should be taken to prevent proliferation of these fake and at times motivated/sensational messages.”

In response, WhatsApp has said that the company deeply cares about people’s safety and their ability to freely communicate. WhatsApp has announced a new research program called WhatsApp research awards for social science and misinformation.

Under this program, WhatsApp will announce competitive awards for researchers interested in helping stop misinformation spread on WhatsApp.

In a statement, the company said, “WhatsApp cares about the safety of our users and is seeking to inform our understanding of the safety problems people encounter on WhatsApp and what more we can do within WhatsApp and in partnership with civil society to address the problem”.

READ MORE:

WhatsApp has launched new option to rein in chaotic group chats: only admins can post, and everyone else has to pay attention in silence.

It might sound counter-intuitive for a chat app to prevent conversations, but the new feature is a handy way for one person to share the news with several friends without being drowned out as several smaller discussions kick off within the group, and animated GIFs push important information off the top of the screen.

Shhh...

"One way people use groups is to receive important announcements and information, including parents and teachers at schools, community centers, and non-profit organizations," WhatsApp said in a blog post. "We've introduced this new setting so admins can have better tools for these use cases."

If your voice is getting lost in a conversation, open 'Group Info', tap 'Group Settings' followed by 'Send Messages' and select 'Only Admins'. The new option is rolling out right now, so don't be alarmed if you can't hush everyone just yet.

WhatsApp might launch their peer-to-peer payment feature as early as next week. A report from BloombergQuint suggests that the UPI-based in-app payment services will be taken off from its current beta phase and will be rolled out for all the users.

The report states that WhatsApp is partnering with HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank to process payments, and SBI will join the list later once the service is in place. 

As of now, the service is available for the Beta testers on Android. As per the reports, the messaging giant was preparing to launch the service officially once they have at least four banking partners, but has now decided to speed up the process as it believes “their rivals were racing ahead”.

Leveraging its large user base, WhatsApp can pose as a serious competitor to the popular digital wallets and payment apps like Paytm, Google Tez, PhonePe and so on. When the existing solutions are compared, Paytm recorded a huge 200 million user base in February 2018 and the rest are still fairly new in the race. So, it’s a good time and opportunity for WhatsApp to foray into the league and make the most out of its user base. With over 200 million monthly active users, WhatsApp surely poses as a solid threat to its rivals. 

It would be interesting to see how WhatsApp cracks into the payment space without affecting the seamless messaging experience. If the service is easy to adapt and is efficient at what it’s supposed to do, we think there’s a huge scope of success for the company.

SOURCE BY TechRadar

After being puzzled by the ‘Black Dot’ message on WhatsApp, users are now reporting a new bug that lets blocked parties see your profile and send messages. Multiple users have reported that they are receiving messages from blocked numbers, and these blocked numbers have even accessed user’s profile, status and more.

The bug was first discovered by WABetaInfo who stated this on his Twitter feed that it could be a bug on the server-side. What’s also baffling is that blocked users being able to connect with people is a direct violation of the messaging platform’s ‘block’ feature. It was meant to keep people at bay but with this bug, they can now send texts and view profiles.

For users facing the issue, there’s no solution from the company yet. However, many users reported this on Twitter that unblocking the contact and re-blocking it will set the block to default, restricting blocked users once again.

WhatsApp has acknowledged the particular issue and has started working on a fix. However, there’s no specific time-frame given by the company yet for the fix. 

SOURCE BY

One of the most popular messaging apps in India, Whatsapp, is reportedly going to be rolling out chat filters for its Business edition. It’s already been reported that WhatsApp Business is being developed for the iOS platform but the beta update for its Android counterpart held clues about the chat filter feature.

The chat filter allows users to scan through their messages quicker. Using categories like unread chats, group and broadcasts lists, only messages of relevance will turn up. The filter icon will be located on the right side of the search tab as seen in screenshots shared by WAbetainfo. 

So far the chat filter only seems to be planned for WhatsApp Business, not normal WhatsApp for Android. There isn’t any information about when the feature will officially roll out or if the company will be customizing it further with specific labels.

Nonetheless, even with basic functionality, it should be useful since it helps narrow down the search parameters.

SOURCE BY TechRadar

Welcome to the latest in an ongoing series of sneaky messages that could crash your phone. In this case you need to watch out for a black dot in the center of a WhatsApp message – but apparently the buggy message isn't always so easy to spot.

As per Reddit threads and YouTube videos, the message comes in a variety of forms and works by hiding a bunch of characters that they get expanded when you tap the message. That information overload causes the app and perhaps even your phone to freeze, whether you're using Android or iOS.

Based on reports over the weekend, several variations of the message seem to be doing the rounds, so we can't tell you exactly what to look for. One of the most common versions is the aforementioned black dot variety, as per IBTimes, but we haven't seen it ourselves.

Beware the black dot

There are also conflicting rumors about whether this only affects Android devices or can hang iPhones as well. WhatsApp itself has yet to make any comment on the bug or issue a patch to protect against it, so we can't yet be sure about exactly what's going on.

The good news is you don't have a lot to worry about – even if a prank-loving friend catches you out with one of these messages, you just need to reset your phone to bring it back. You won't lose any data and there's no indication that any of these messages can hack into your device.

These malevolent strings of text to rely on a tap from the user though, so for a few days at least, be wary of any messages asking you to tap on a symbol or a word to see more: chances are you're being duped.

SOURCE BY TechRadar

BENGALURU: WhatsApp could go live with its much-awaited payments feature as early as next month, according to people aware of the developments, providing the biggest boost yet for digital payments in the country.

The most widely used messaging app in India is at various stages of integrating its Unified Payments Interface (UPI)- based payments platform with State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank, these people said.

“The platform is already in beta stage (testing) with one of its partner banks. We expect the product to go live for consumers by the end of February, depending on how the trials work out,” one of them said.

A banker too confirmed that WhatsApp is at various stages of system integration with banks. “We are doing security checks to ensure the safety of the data,” the banker said. The final step following security checks in the integration process involves testing the product among select users before it can go live.

The Facebook-owned messaging company received government approval to integrate with UPI in July, joining other global giants including Google that queued up to roll out their own versions of the instant payments facility that’s directly linked to banks. WhatsApp’s payments feature is highly anticipated because of the huge popularity of the app across diverse populations in India and its anticipated ability to bring a huge segment of the country within the digital payments ecosystem.

Bankers, however, say there are various security concerns that need to be addressed before the integration, especially with regard to data of bank customers.

Involves Many Levels of Encryption

“To be able to send money as easily as a text message involves ensuring various levels of encryption to keep the data safe,” said anot- her senior banker involved in the system integration process with WhatsApp. “UPI, by itself, also has a complicated settlement mechanism between various banking partners. These issues need to be attended to before the product goes live.”

WhatsApp will act as a top layer that will identify the sender and the recipient in the back-end. Since its payments platform will be integrated with banks, it will also identify the bank account of the customers. Finally, UPI will help settle the transactions.

UPI, which reported 145 million transactions in December, has emerged as one of the fastest-growing payments instruments since the demonetisation of highvalue bank notes in November 2016, mainly supported by the strong adoption of Google Tez, Paytm and Flipkart’s payments arm, PhonePe.

While Tez and PhonePe have crossed 10 million downloads each on Google Play Store, Paytm, known more for its digital wallets, has more than 100 million downloads. All these platforms are incentivising users to transact on their UPI platforms. WhatsApp, which has crossed 1 billion downloads globally, has more than 200 million monthly active users in India.

In China, mobile payments volume doubled to around $5 trillion in 2016 mainly driven by Alipay and WeChat Pay, a feature of the country’s largest messaging app. Tencent-owned WeChat has about 963 million monthly active users and Alipay about 520 million users. If India is going the China way in digital payments, it only shows the potential that app-based payments have in a country where smartphone penetration is growing rapidly and the central bank is promoting instant settlements in a major way.

Homegrown messaging platform Hike that went live on UPI in June reported 10 million financial transactions in November on a 100% month-on-month growth, highlighting the potential for WhatsApp’s payments feature. Hike, too, has more than 10 million downloads on Google Play Store.

“WhatsApp is expected to add stronger volume growth to the UPI platform,” said the first person quoted above. “Even if it starts off primarily with peer-to-peer transactions, if it manages to build a usage habit among its captive users, then taking UPI for merchant payments will not be a huge challenge.”

Source By:- Economictimes

WhatsApp as of now enables clients to send a scope of document sorts with each other with no whine, yet it creates the impression that soon all record sorts will be bolstered on the uber prevalent informing administration. 

A test is as of now experiencing with a little arrangement of clients for a refresh that adds the capacity to send any sort of record between clients on WhatsApp, as per Android Central. 

That implies that records outside of the at present upheld sorts — which incorporate .TXT, .CSV, .PDF, and even Microsoft Office documents like .PPT and .DOCX — may soon be added to WhatsApp, making the informing administration significantly more valuable for profitability and sharing. 

All things considered, there are a few cutoff points. The record measure top for WhatsApp's new component is as far as anyone knows close to 128MB for iOS and 100MB for Android. 

While still a genuinely not too bad roof for exchanging information over cell phones, don't hope to be conveying numerous gigs of crude photograph or video at any point in the near future. 

As indicated by reports from WEBetaInfo, the element is taking off gradually, implying that it could take a while before every one of the billion or more WhatsApp clients get their hands on new record sharing capacities. Meanwhile, don't hesitate to spam .GIFs to your companions with WhatsApp's as of late included Giphy seek highlight. 

Giving individuals a chance to impart safely and secretly ought to be an easy decision, not a confused procedure where clients go through the motions or pay for costly apparatuses. For more than a billion WhatsApp clients around the globe, that fantasy is currently reality, as the informing application now gives end-to-end encryption to all clients.

The most recent adaptation of WhatsApp, discharged toward the end of last week, gives clients a chance to send and get messages, connections, and voice calls that must be deciphered by the proposed beneficiary, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, originators of WhatsApp, said in the web journal declaration. The encryption highlight is turned on for every bolstered stage, which implies each WhatsApp client on iPhone, Android, Nokia, and BlackBerry gadgets are ensured.

"Starting now and into the foreseeable future when you and your contacts utilize the most recent adaptation of the application, each call you make, and each message, photograph, video, document, and voice message you send, is end-to-end encoded naturally, including bunch visits," Koum and Acton said.

Every client checks their contacts and all encryption keys are put away locally. Since none of the keys ever touch WhatsApp servers, its absolutely impossible WhatsApp can know the substance of clients' messages, regardless of the possibility that law implementation comes thumping with a court request. The main places the messages could be blocked are on the two gadgets corresponding with each other - nothing in the middle.

"Everything you need to know is that end-to-end scrambled messages must be perused by the beneficiaries you mean," WhatsApp said.

Move in advancement

The change from a plaintext to a scrambled world can't be momentary since everybody won't redesign to the most recent adaptation in the meantime. Be that as it may, WhatsApp demonstrates the encryption status of each discussion, so nobody is ever indeterminate about the security of the session. In a gathering visit, if one of the beneficiaries is as yet running a more established form of the application, then the message doesn't get encoded. Be that as it may, every single other individual from that gathering visit would unmistakably have the capacity to tell the session is not scrambled, and in addition the name of the contact who is driving the message to be sent in its unprotected structure.

Along these lines, beneficiaries dependably know the security of their messages, and they can weight their companions and partners to move up to the most recent forms. Peer weight for more security - why not, on the off chance that it works?

Once the talk customer sets up a conclusion to-end encoded session with a get in touch with, it could never permit a plaintext discussion with that contact, regardless of the fact that the contact tries to utilize a gadget with the more established adaptation of the application. This keeps anybody from performing a downsize assault.

"In the long run all the pre-e2e proficient customers will terminate, and soon thereafter new forms of the product will no more transmit or acknowledge plaintext messages by any means," said Moxie Marlinspike, the cryptography scientist behind Open Whisper Systems, which gave the foundation of WhatsApp's encryption innovation.

Utilizing Signal

WhatsApp has been chipping away at the encryption issue for some time, including encryption as a default for a few messages in late 2014. That element was limited to specific gadgets, and it was difficult for clients to tell when messages were not secured. A year ago, WhatsApp joined forces with Open Whisper Systems, the group behind secure informing application Signal, to coordinate the open source Signal Protocol into WhatsApp.

The Signal Protocol is "a current, open source, forward secure, solid encryption convention for offbeat informing frameworks, intended to make end-to-end encoded informing as consistent as could be expected under the circumstances," Marlinspike said.

Marlinspike said Open Whisper Systems is working with other informing organizations to "enhance the effect and extent of private correspondence considerably further." It's incredible that Apple encodes iMessage and FaceTime messages, end to end, however that doesn't help clients who don't have a costly iPhone. WhatsApp and other informing organizations going ahead board makes it simpler for all intents and purposes anybody to be a piece of the security standard.

Security as a matter of course

With respect to encryption, there's a feeling that a great many people couldn't care less about online security. In the event that they gave it a second thought, the rationale goes, there would be more individuals utilizing encryption instruments that would keep online correspondences and data safe. The fact of the matter is entirely distinctive. Individuals need the certification that their correspondences with their contacts are private, that what they say or share stays between them. Be that as it may, it can't be too hard in light of the fact that the default returns back to shakiness.

Selecting into security commonly don't have high rates of reception. A month prior, Amazon supported expelling encryption from its Kindle Fire gadgets in light of the fact that nobody was utilizing it (before it called it quits).

Apple made encryption one of the themes iOS clients don't need to consider much. It's all the more building exertion by the organization to motivate encryption to work consistently and straightforwardly, yet it winds up ensuring more individuals. Security should be empowered naturally and not a choice surrendered over to the client. WhatsApp's choice to turn on encryption as a matter of course for everybody makes the procedure simple. Clients don't need to do anything diverse to secure their discussions. They don't need to burrow through the application's settings menu to empower the component. Use WhatsApp, use encryption. It's that basic.

Securing online interchanges ought to dependably be that direct.

"The craving to secure individuals' private correspondence is one of the center convictions we have at WhatsApp, and for me, it's close to home," Koum composed.

Your turn, government

WhatsApp's declaration comes at a fascinating time. A late New York Times report asserted the Department of Justice was amidst court procedures against WhatsApp with respect to catching certain messages. Subtle elements of the request was cloudy, however recommended another legitimate confrontation like the late Apple and the FBI fight was conceivable.

It's not just the U.S. government taking a gander at secure informing applications, either. Brazilian powers as of late captured a Facebook official for purportedly not giving data from a WhatsApp account possibly applicable to a medication trafficking examination.

Encryption is a standout amongst the most essential devices accessible as more data gets put away on remote servers and different types of correspondences move on the web. Encryption keeps governments, organizations, and people safe from misuse by digital offenders, programmers, and rebel country states. In the course of recent months, governments have asserted that expanded utilization of encryption is hindering criminal examinations, that aggressors utilizing encoded types of correspondences make it harder for law authorization to assemble data. Be that as it may, debilitating it in the way different government authorities have recommended is a risky move and will bring about more harm.

"While we perceive the imperative work of law requirement in keeping individuals safe, endeavors to debilitate encryption hazard presenting individuals' data to mishandle from digital culprits, programmers, and maverick states," Koum said.

More - and across the board - encryption is the response to a sheltered Internet. With this redesign, WhatsApp has put the interchanges of every one of its clients out of the scope of any individual who isn't the planned beneficiary. The FBI didn't care for Apple's methodology toward security, and it certainly won't acknowledge what the world's most famous informing application did.