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Since it was founded in 2009, WhatsApp has become one of the apps you’re most likely to find on phones worldwide. 

Today, it has over 2 billion users in 180 countries – even more than users of its stablemate, Facebook Messenger, which is presumably why Mark Zuckerberg’s company were so keen to gobble it up for an eye-watering $19 billion in 2014.

A new privacy policy revealed in January 2021 has meant the app requires you to share certain personal details with Facebook to continue using the app.

To use WhatsApp past February 8, 2021, you'll need to agree to the new terms that allow Facebook to see data including your phone number, status messages, profile names, IP address and more.

Many are looking to switch to an alternative app to ensure they don't have to share this data with Facebook, and that's where this list comes in. Below we've listed a variety of the top alternatives you can switch to as an alternative to WhatsApp.

Telegram

Telegram is perhaps WhatsApp’s closest competitor in terms of functionality - and it even looks almost identical to the Facebook-owned behemoth. 

What sets it apart is that it doubles down on the promises over security: not only are messages end-to-end encrypted, but it is possible to set messages to self-destruct after a given period of time – leaving no trace of whatever important conversations you were having.

One other nice feature is that, unlike WhatsApp, it's truly multi-platform – with apps available for desktop, as well as mobile and on the web.

Signal

Many of these alternatives boast about their security credentials but if you’re really paranoid there’s only one option. Signal offers a similar suite of features to its competitors, as well as end-to-end encryption, but there’s one big difference: The app itself is open-source.

This means that all of the code for the app is publicly available to view, making it impossible for the creators to sneak in any backdoors that could give governments or hackers access to your messages. 

The app has also scored a major endorsement to bolster its privacy credentials even further in the form of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

iMessage

In response to the growth of WhatsApp, Apple has built out its own Messages app - iMessage - to be just as fully featured. Now, when messaging iPhone to iPhone, there are no character limits, you can send pictures, videos and… well, pretty much anything, thanks to a plethora of app integrations. 

Most notably, this includes Apple Pay in some countries, so that you can literally send money over text and, of course, Animojis. Hit a button and rather than type out your missive, you can perform it as a 3D animal puppet, with the fox, monkey or unicorn’s mouth movements matching your own. 

And yes, you can also be a talking poop emoji, but we recommend only using that when, say, dumping someone or telling a loved one about a death in the family.

There’s just one catch: iMessage is, by design, only available on Apple devices, so if you want to chat with your Android mates you’ve got to go back to using plain old 140-character SMS.

Google Messages

In response to Apple not playing nicely with iMessage, Google launched its own Android-only messaging service called…Messages. 

Available on the Play Store, this app also replaces your standard SMS app, and the big point in its favor is that it deeply integrates with all of Google’s apps and services. 

This means that you can easily share images from your Google Photos, or use Google Assistant to make a restaurant reservation with a friend from right within the app.

Facebook Messenger

This won't avoid the issue of sharing your data with Facebook, but it does pose a suitable alternative to WhatsApp for some. Facebook Messenger is an integral part of the Facebook experience, but a separate app enables private messaging between individuals and groups.

You may find this is more suitable for you than WhatsApp, especially as it works seperately from a phone number so you can use it across multiple devices at once without having to reauthorize the app.

Line, Viber, WeChat and others

There are a number of other messaging apps out there which have millions of users. Line, for instance, reportedly had 700m registered users in 2019 and Viber supposedly had 260m active users every month then too.

Some of these apps have some really interesting functionality too – for example, WeChat has an entire mini-app eco-system inside of the app, so that you can shop, order taxis and so on without leaving WeChat itself.

But we wouldn’t necessarily recommend making the switch to these apps as they may not be all that useful. Why? Because they’re mere minnows in the English-speaking world. 

WeChat dominates China, Line is the go-to messenger in Japan, and BlackBerry Messenger is the biggest in Indonesia (no, really) – which are great if you live there. If you’re in the UK, the United States, or Australia however, you’re not going to find that many of your friends on these apps.

Google has introduced Chrome OS flex on Windows, Mac and Linus that are manufactured over the last 10 or more years to enable users enjoy features available on Chrome OS device. According to Google’s blog post, the development would be available on certified model list to ensure a consistent and high-quality experience.

The new Chrome OS Flex is aimed at enterprises and educational users who aims to prolong the lifetime of their existing devices, it allows anyone with access to a USB device to use it to give an older PC a new lease on life.

Meanwhile, Google said that the development is still in the testing phase and is not necessarily available on all systems yet. It stated, “Chrome OS Flex is currently released for early access testing and is not suitable for production use. is available for immediate stable deployment. Google will automatically update CloudReady devices to Chrome OS Flex, when Chrome OS Flex is stable.”

It added that some models might not yet work at all, while others might have only minor issues – even models with no issues are potentially unstable and may not be deployed for production.

According to Google, model status verified to work are expected to work with Chrome OS Flex and these devices are only certified if their exact model name and number is included in the certified models list while models with minor issues expected are likely to support at least basic functionality, but are still being worked on by Google team, hence users may run into minor issues.

What you should know

Chrome OS and Chrome OS Flex share underlying technology and management tools. When you install Chrome OS Flex on Windows, Mac, or Linux devices, you get most of the features and benefits of Chrome OS. However, Chrome OS Flex has some important differences compared to Chrome OS, which is only available on Chromebooks, Chromeboxes, and Chromebases.

It is also advisable that if you are not a professional that really needs the highest video resolution possible, it’s better to always reduce video sizes on android to create more storage space for other files. This is because when you reduce video sizes on android, you also reduce bandwidth usage and uploading time.  To reduce video sizes on android, do the following: 

Use camera settings

According to a telecom expert at CalCare Centre, Abuja, Jide Mbaka, video sizes could be reduced on android via camera settings but not with phone’s normal camera. You have to download Camera MX and use it to record your videos on android. Once you set it following these steps, it automatically reduces your video sizes.

Download and launch Camera MX

Tap on the three dots at the top right corner

Select the settings icon

Enable Alternative Resolution

Reduce video resolution to Bitrate

And that’s it!

To record videos with a small file size in android, use Camera MX. Now, what if you are not the one that recorded the video? You can still reduce these kinds of videos using video compressors.

Use of apps

You can reduce video sizes with the use of mobile apps too. One app that is famous is video compress. To use video compress to reduce video sizes on android easily, follow these easy steps;

Download and install video compress on your smartphone

Launch the app and open the folder containing the video you wish to reduce

Find and select the video

Tap on compress video

Choose a new resolution and size for your video at the top screen

The video compressing will start

Once the compressing process is completed, play your new video

The videos you compressed will save with the original name in a folder named Super Video Compressor. You’ll find the folder in your file storage and if you are wondering if your video will still maintain the same quality it had, here is another way you can reduce video sizes on android without losing quality on android.

How to reduce file size without losing quality in android

When you reduce video sizes on android, it usually speeds up your video creation and editing process as you don’t need to work with large video files that consume lots of space and time. But then, how do you reduce the file size without losing the quality?

There are two reliable ways to reduce video size without losing the quality in android. The first way is to make your video shorter. If you can trim footage off at the beginning or end, that will reduce the size of the file.

The second way you can reduce file size without losing quality in android is by removing audio from your video. Most videos will probably come with audio and background music, but sometimes, It’s unnecessary and can be removed. This will decrease the file size. Not forgetting you can do this too on the video compress app. Follow these easy steps to do so:

Launch video compress and open the folder containing the video you wish to reduce

Find and select the video

Tap on Trim Video

Trim your video

When done select Trim video

And your video size will be reduced

However, if you wish to mail the video, you will have to use another mobile app to reduce the video.

How to compress a video for email on android

It can be tricky to get videos from one place to another. You can make video files easier to handle by compre, as already stated this will reduce their file size and make them compact enough to send via email. So, to reduce video sizes on android, you will need a Video Converter. It comes in both free and premium versions. The free Lite version can help you compress the video manually.