The battle to become the most secure platform for chatting has been going on for now where such networks like WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram or Facebook Messenger giving information about how robust their privacy is.
It was only a matter of time before someone decided to pit these security systems employed by these platforms against one other to determine which is the best for users out there. Amnesty International did that and the results are quite interesting.
According to their report, Facebook apps (Messenger and WhatsApp) were found out to be “doing the most to use encryption to respond to human rights threats.” Specifically regarding to WhatsApp, they said that it was “the only app where users are explicitly warned when end-to-end encryption” is not applied to a particular chat.
WhatsApp rolled out their end-to-end encryption April this year which was way later than some platforms but better late than never and doing it right. Amnesty compared it with its sibling, Facebook Messenger where they found out that “Messenger does not apply end to end encryption by default, and does not warn users that regular conversations use a weaker form of encryption.”
Amnesty ranked 11 companies in total that run these popular messaging apps and Facebook apps were the top. Generally,:
- WhatsApp, iMessage, Facetime, Line, Google Duo and Viber have end-to-end encryption by default.
- Messenger, Google Allo, Telegram Messenger and Kakao Talk have end to end encryption which is not set as default.
- Worryingly, Skype, Snapchat, Hangouts, WeChat, QQ Messenger and Blackberry Messenger don’t have end-to-end encryption.
Well according to this report, WhatsApp is the “safest” place to chat with friends, family and acquaintances and the likes of Snapchat, Hangouts and Skype are quite “unsafe” in terms of your message being highly likely to be intercepted.
Does this change how you use Messaging apps?
