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The use of an unauthorised Android app blocks users from Whatsapp for 24 hours.
Facebook, presently the biggest social networking site on duty, has bought not only the Instagram platform, but also Whatsapp, a messaging service available only for smartphones that have an Android operating system. Whatsapp+ has been created in order to offer a boost to the standard application, offering the users the possibility of customizing the conversations that they are having through different colors and background images. Moreover, the size of the video that can be attached in conversation has a larger limit, feature that applies to sound files too. Also, there is an option that can prevent other users to see when you have last logged into the service. As a result, if users want to install Whatsapp+, the must uninstall the basic version of Whatsapp, first, say the developers of the app. However, Whatsapp+ is not available on Google store.
“WhatsApp Plus is an application that was not developed by WhatsApp, nor is it authorized by WhatsApp. The developers of WhatsApp Plus have no relationship to WhatsApp, and we do not support WhatsApp Plus. Please be aware that WhatsApp Plus contains source code which WhatsApp cannot guarantee as safe and that your private information is potentially being passed to third-parties without your knowledge or authorisation. Please uninstall your application and install an authorized version of WhatsApp from our website or Google Play. Then, you will be able to use WhatsApp.”
Unfortunately, a leaking of private data happened and some users succeeded in downloading the Whatsapp+ from an unknown source. As a consequence, they have been banned from using the application for 24 hours. The message that appears on the screen of its users is: “You’re temporarily banned from WhatsApp because you may have violated our terms of services. You’ll be able to use WhatsApp again in : [xx:xx:xx].” The creators of Whatsapp+ are adviced to uninstall it, because it is a malware and it endangers their security.
Dr Joss Wright from the Oxford Internet Institute stated that it is important that people know to be careful about third-party stores. Quality control implemented by Google eliminate applications that are encountered as not being entirely Kosher and indeed by Apple, which is very prohibitory about what it grants on the iOS store. He claims that this kind of apps bring along with them all kinds of security bugs.
Whatsapp has a big kingdom. 700 million users send about 30 billion messages a day. The first 12 months of usage is free, but afterwards, Whatsapp charges a $0.99 fee per year.
Image Source: 9 to 5 Google
