Hi. I’m thinking about switching to Linux on my smartphone. The only reason I can’t is because in my country WhatsApp is everywhere and I’m expected to have it for various school/sport things. I’d like to setup whatsapp on my laptop, but I don’t know how.

I know WhatsApp Web and Desktop exist, but in the past you needed to log in to your phone at least once a month for the web session to keep working. Is it that still the case?

Or can I just log in from Android (and be fine as long as I don’t accidentally log out)?

  • pre@fedia.io
    5·
    9 months ago

    @robin@beehaw.org

    Whatssapp is designed as a surveillance app, it’s primary purpose is to collect data from your phone for Facebook to analyze, so they make it basically impossible to use unless it’s installed on your phone.

    • beeng@discuss.tchncs.de
      3·
      9 months ago

      But Facebook bought WhatsApp in like 2015 was it?

      So it wasn’t designed with Facebook datascraping in mind.

      • pre@fedia.io
        2·
        9 months ago

        @beeng@discuss.tchncs.de I wonder what proportion of the original code is still there. Not much I shouldn’t think. The original app didn’t ask for android permissions the way the modern one does, if only coz Android changed the way permissions work since then.

        @robin@beehaw.org

    • ccx
      1·
      9 months ago

      Original WhatsApp was XMPP with phone number for your username. Pretty much what https://quicksy.im/ does now.

      WhatsApp today is completely different beast.