Why you should switch to Signal or Telegram from WhatsApp, Today

Want my take on free apps vs. paid apps? Go here.

Originally published on my blog, and will soon by removed from Medium.

When we think of communicating with someone today, we mostly think of sending them a text message or a voice note on WhatsApp. And some other people who are least bothered about their privacy online, think of Facebook Messenger. But not all these users know what’s happening with the messages they exchange on these platforms. Let’s take a look at that.

Before we start, let me admit, I am by no means an expert on security and privacy online. But I have done enough research for the last couple of years, which made me switch to Firefox and DuckDuckGo (with a lot of customized preferences on both), from Google’s Chrome browser and search. I’ve made a lot of other such switches in my digital life. So not all that I write here is bullshit.

My concern about WhatsApp was first raised when Facebook acquired the messaging platform, for loads and loads of money, the kind of money that was never heard of before in the tech space. A lot of people wondered why would a company such as Facebook pay so much money to acquire a company such as WhatsApp, which had absolutely no way of making money, yet. The (not so and subtly) obviously answer was, WhatsApp had collected a lot of user data, and that’s precious to the Gollum that is Facebook.

I didn’t worry much about this at the time. But then, a few months after this, I met an acquaintance and we exchanged numbers for some reason. She texted me a couple of times to ask me something about the company where I was working at the time, as she was interested in an open position at the company. Two to three days after her first WhatsApp message to me, I got her Facebook profile as a suggestion. This was spooky to me, because Facebook and WhatsApp had stated that Facebook will not be using WhatsApp’s data in any way. That was obviously a lie. And that was the fine day I deactivated my Facebook profile, I haven’t logged in since. It’s been about three years. I still continue to use WhatsApp on a daily basis, only because almost nobody in my contacts list uses any other messaging service, except Facebook Messenger of course.