Whatsapp Annoynace

Whatsapp is widely used in personal chat and at work, and it worked very well at the start, but it added lot of bulk over the years to make it very trouble to use. I use Whatsapp personally and at work, but I never liked it a bit, if not my friends and my office use it I will not install it, I am use Signal and some Telegram without the problems.

Here are a few annoyance I have with Whatsapp.

1. Call feature

- this one I hated most, many people will call me with Whatsapp. Since I will move around during work the phone reception is not stable and breaking up and the audio delayed, so that I will disable it with an app, but this is no longer possible with the new versions of Whatsapp, I can only mute the ring to ignore them. I did use Signal call some times but very rarely.

2. Groups disappearing

- I linked Whatsapp to Firefox and Brave and the groups will disappear after some use, I can't even search them, so that I have to send a test message via the phone then I will see it on the PC, but the problem will repeat after some use. One of the way to make the groups to show is to reset Whatsapp on the phone to start as new. Today the groups disappeared not only on PC but also disappeared on the phone !

3. No reset option on Android

- Whenever there problem I will reset Whatsapp on the phone, but now no such options, I can only un/re-install the app hopefully the problem will be solved.


4. Unable to link to PC (LMDE 7) after reinstall

- I tried to re-link to the PC after reinstall Whatsapp, but it said unable to do it due to my phone internet connection problem, not really and internet worked fine, but I found a way to link it up again. I did not pick the existing phone no. during setup, but add a new one with the same no. then it linked up no problem, so that there's problem on their server.

5. Out of Sync.

- When I delete the messages on phone the PC does not always follow, some times part of the chats deleted but some stays.

I wonder if I am really alone on the above, as I did not hear my friends having the same problems, Whatsapp seems to work very well on iPhone

If it annoys you, there are other apps.
Many are FOSS and may be self-hosted for even greater security.

Last time I checked, all the linux versions didn't support video calls. Is that working yet?

Originally Posted by wpeckham If it annoys you, there are other apps. Many are FOSS and may be self-hosted for even greater security.

It wasn't me wanted to use it, my office using it for work, so that's why it annoyed me a lot !

I have never used WhatsApp, and will never. It has known backdoors. If I were still in the workforce and my employer forced me to, of course I would use whatever was required, even Windows. For secure messaging, I use Signal. It works fine on any platform. Just yesterday I had a family video call, with iPhone, Linux, and Android all in use. I tend to answer these on my phone because it's usually closer at hand, but I was already on my laptop when the call started, so I just answered it there. I want no delays in seeing my grandchildren.

Originally Posted by enigma9o7 Last time I checked, all the linux versions didn't support video calls. Is that working yet?

Something is going wrong: I have commented twice and had my comments VANISH!
I suspect LQ is under attack again, but it COULD just be a software of hardware issue.

Anyway, I do not think Linux has the option of supporting or not supporting video calls. The OS provides the display software/drivers, the GUI interface, and the networking communications. Providing call functionality if up to software applications. It is up to the user to install and configure the requirements, software, and configuration for calling.

My company hosted THOUSANDS of servers for HUNDREDS of clients, We already had more than adequate hosting, networking, and expertise in the admin team resources. We had a legal and contract requirement to maintain the security of all information we had about and for our clients (and THEIR clients) so that no discussion of such could escape our control unencrypted. We configured a secure FOSS based solution and ran it ourselves.

I ABSOLUTELY understand a company without those resources of security requirements doign risk analysis and cost-benefit evaluations and deciding to select and out-of-the-box solution.

I never would, but I do understand.
What I do not understand is not providing user support so that user issues can be mitigated properly and in a timely fashion.

Originally Posted by wpeckham Something is going wrong: I have commented twice and had my comments VANISH! I suspect LQ is under attack again, but it COULD just be a software of hardware issue.

my connection is very slow when i try to connect to lq.
i wouldnt be surprised if it were DDOS or something.

Originally Posted by wpeckham Anyway, I do not think Linux has the option of supporting or not supporting video calls.

Not sure what you're saying here. The windows and android official whatsapp clients support video calls. Linux has never had an official native client (that I'm aware of), all the ones packaged for linux use the web interface, and the web interface didn't used to support video calls, so that limitation applied to linux whatsapp clients too. But I recall thinking I read something a few months ago saying that whatsapp web now supports video calls, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of the linux clients (like zapzap, whatsie, karere, etc) now work for video calls, but I haven't looked into it myself.