From WhatsApp to Telegram and WeChat, it’s impossible to think of a world without messaging apps. After all, it’s a super convenient way of communicating with our colleagues, friends and family.
The success of messaging apps also means there is more choice than ever in choosing which app to use. Which begs the question: what is the best messaging app in 2022?
The answer to this question depends on what you want to use the app for. We’ll use 2 big criteria to guide you through the jungle of messaging apps.
1. Popularity: Because what’s a messaging app worth if you can’t message anyone you know with it.
2. Security: Because when you send someone a message, you kind of want them and only them to see or hear it.
When you read the title of this article, you probably immediately thought of WhatsApp. That’s not strange, because it’s the most popular text messaging app and one of the most popular social media apps. At least in the West. It even comes pre-installed on some smartphones.
It’s hard to find anyone without WhatsApp, so it definitely ticks the popularity box. But is WhatsApp secure? WhatsApp uses end to end encryption, which keeps your messages relatively safe. There have been some security gaps in the past, but for the most part, WhatsApp is pretty safe.
The biggest downside to WhatsApp is that it’s owned by Facebook. The plans the social media giant has for its messaging apps are still unclear. So even if WhatsApp is secure now, that could change overnight.
When Facebook bought WhatsApp, the search for an alternative messaging app began. Let’s discuss some of the most popular ones below.
Popularity: With 1.3 Billion active users worldwide, Facebook Messenger is the the second most popular messenger app worldwide. Its integration with Facebook means you can’t just use it to chat with friends, but order tickets for a movie or get a reservation for a restaurant as well.
Security: Needless to say but Facebook Messenger, just like WhatsApp, is owned by Facebook. The end to end encryption of WhatsApp is also missing from Messenger. So if you’re looking for a secure messaging app, look somewhere else.
Popularity: Telegram was founded in 2014 and rose to prominence because of its massive group chats. With 500 million users it’s also one of the most popular messaging apps worldwide.
Security: Telegram has so called ‘secret chats’ that are encrypted. When you turn this on, you can even set your messages to self destruct after a set period of time. But you need to turn these features on for your messages to be encrypted. Telegram doesn’t use end to end encryption on its normal messages. That makes it slightly less secure than WhatsApp is.
Are there any WhatsApp alternative apps that are more secure than the apps already mentioned? Yes there are!
Viber has end-to-end encryption on chats and video calls. It also uses colour codes to show just how secure the chat is. Grey is used for the standard encrypted chats. Green for encrypted chats with trusted contacts. Red is used when the encryption has run into a problem.
With 260 million users, Viber is also one of the more popular messaging apps around. Making it a useful alternative to WhatsApp.
The biggest downside to Viber is that its encryption is only used on one-on-one chats. Meaning your group chats are not protected.
Wickr is one of the most secure messaging apps around. It has plenty of features that make it secure beyond end to end encryption. This includes screenshot detection and making sure that deleted files are completely unrecoverable.
This comes with one big downside however. Not a lot of people use Wickr. That makes it hard to use in your day to day life. Unless you can convince your family and friends to also download the app.
Signal has been the best known secure messaging app since its original release in 2014. Its encryption software is well known to be extremely good.
By default Signal uses encryption on all its messages. That means one-on-one chats, as well as group chats and video calls.
Signal’s user base is growing. But it is nowhere near as big as WhatsApp or Telegram at the moment.
The apps we’ve talked about above are mostly popular in the West. But not all apps are equally popular everywhere. You can see which app is the most popular messaging app in any country in the world here.
There are some alternatives to Whatsapp and Telegram that are country-specific. Two of the most used and well-known ones are WeChat and QQ. Both are Chinese messaging apps, but they can be used outside of China.
With more than 1.213 billion monthly active users, WeChat is one of the most popular social networks in 2022. It’s not for nothing that it’s sometimes called the ‘Chinese WhatsApp’.
It’s not just a messaging app either. You can also use it for banking transactions. It can even function as a virtual assistant.
Some of these features don’t work outside of China, especially the banking transactions. But you can still use it to send messages, video and audio calls. It even has its own stories-like platform, called Moments.
The biggest downside to WeChat is it's security. It does not offer end to end encryption and suffers from a lot of other issues. It's far less secure than WhatsApp and ranked last in Amnesty Internationals ranking of privacy in messaging apps.
QQ is another Chinese messaging app. With 617 million active users, it’s one of the most popular messaging apps worldwide. Currently it’s available in over 80 countries.
Like WeChat it’s a messaging app with all sorts of useful extras. This includes the built in translator. This makes it easier for users to communicate with people who speak a different language.
You can message with QQ, as well as do voice and video calls and transfer files.
QQ is owned by the same company as WeChat and suffers from the same security flaws as that app does.
Whichever messaging app you use, you don’t want to run out of data. Luckily it’s easier than ever to top up your prepaid phone plan.
Visit our mobile top up page. Or go to our app. Select your provider and the amount of data you need. Pay with your preferred payment method and your phone will be topped up in no time. So you can go back to chatting with friends and family in no time.
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