I just got a new phone and have been using WhatsApp via browser. It's a fight (e.g. you have to force desktop layout) and clearly something they'd prefer you didn't do but ... it's usable. Common actions like sharing photos, replying/reacting to a message, etc. all require multiple taps and futzing with the zoom level but they are possible. There are a few actions, like viewing one-time photos which are not available and the biggest problem is that you're still tethered to a device running a fully fledged version of the app. When your session expires, you're required to authenticate again by scanning a code generated by the native app. Thankfully, my old phone is still functional and this is one of the reasons I'm keeping it around. I'm considering it tainted by Meta and, since I won't be taking new photos or doing anything substantive with it, I guess that's fine.

I have thought about it. I wonder if some smart person can figure out how to manipulate the CSS of the browser version so its easily usable on phones.

I treat WhatsApp as a hostile app[1], which means I deny any access to my stuff even if I get a subpar experience. In places where it's required (as where I live), this is the bare minimum a privacy-minded person can do.

[1] https://manualdousuario.net/en/a-less-affectionate-approach-...

Yeah but other people share their contact list with WhatsApp and they have you in there, with your name and phone number and possibly more info.

I never understood why Apple allows access to the full address book including all Apple-specific settings such as "spouse" and "home address" that are useful within iOS. There should be a minimal permission mode: name and phone number only.

I was going to proudly boast that I don’t have any Meta apps on my phone. Got rid of FB a long time ago, never jumped on the Instagram train.

Then I your post and now I realize I’m still in the Meta world. Forgot about whatsapp for a second.

There is a reason they paid so much for it. In a lot of the world, they’re essentially required.

And next to impossible to get rid of. I would much rather use Signal but convincing even privacy-conscious people to switch is an uphill battle.

I find a lot of people (including myself) had a pretty bad experience with Signal years ago, and it has put them off using it today.

Signal is quite good these days for what it is worth. My whole family switched and hasn’t missed whatsapp. That said I am still stuck on whatsapp, it is basically the only messaging app people use in a lot of the world and used by a ton of businesses.

Maybe once the ads start showing on Whatsapp it gets easier to convince people to switch.

There are ads on Viber and people aren’t convinced to switch to Whatsapp either.

Convenience and habit will trump the annoyance of having to see adverts.

On iOS, whatsapp is weirdly pushy about getting unlimited access to your photo album.

They also go out of their way to make it hard to save a photo without granting full access. Creepy.

On Android WhatsApp also requires access to all media files on the phone in order to use certain features that don't really need them, but that sound plausible.

For example, when you receive an audio message, if you want to listen to it, it will request full media access. Android apps can access media files they have created, so this permission isn't needed. But without granting media access (or tricking it into thinking it has it, like with GrapheneOS' storage scopes), WhatsApp won't let you listen to the audio. Same when trying to open an image full screen instead of just the in-chat preview.

If this were a small developer, I could assume it was done that way accidentally or to cut some corners. Coming from Meta, I can only assume malice.

A similar anti-pattern - WhatsApp has it's own contact list and list of users. However, you can't use it without granting the Contacts permissions. On my phone, though I have WhatsApp installed, I can't create a new chat - It just brings up the "Enable Contacts" dialogue. I can however use their web-client to initiate a chat, and when people can message me I can respond.

you can also start a conversation going to the URL wa.me/<phone number> in a browser

IME giving it "limited access" works well; you can save anything without issue.

What pisses me off, though, is that I didn't find a way to give a contact a name without allowing it access to the phone's contacts.

Tested it, and yes, when I increase the access from "Add Photos Only" to "Limited Access" I can add photos again.

But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy.

And yeah the contacts thing also pisses me off. They know what they are doing.

> But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy.

I think this is good enough. If you consider they do shady stuff with your pictures, you might as well consider that they hold on to anything they get their hands on right away.

I think you meant to say you don’t think this is good enough? And I’d second that.

No, I do think it's good enough.

My idea is that if WhatsApp can't be trusted, once it gets access to any file, it will hold on to it. So revoking access to something it already has won't accomplish all that much, since I've already figured that I can share that file with them.

>But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy.

Not really, given whatsapp could be theoretically keeping a local copy and the operating system can't really do anything about it. It would also be a pretty weird case to code. Imagine writing an app where if you tried to save a file, you couldn't immediately access it afterwards.

> Imagine writing an app where if you tried to save a file, you couldn't immediately access it afterwards.

It works fine in other apps such as Signal and even Teams.

I don't really want Moxie or MSFT to have persistent access to any part of my personal photo album either, no matter how good they say they'll be.

My solution to this is to go

Photos -> share photo -> whatsapp

Instead of starting from whatsapp

I just tried removing the access photos permission entirely from Whatsapp on my Android phone. Then, sharing a photo from within the Photos app pops up the permission dialog in Whatsapp. You need to give it at least the "Limited" permission, otherwise it won't process the shared photo.

Having given it that permission, I can share photos from within Whatsapp as well, without going to the Photos app. I'm not sure if the file picker that pops up is a Whatsapp component (meaning the "Limited" permission is essentially unlimited) or if it's a system component. I mean the latter would make sense, but I'm too cynical to believe it works that well.

What I do is open the photos app and then either copy & paste into the whatsapp message field or use the sharing dialog to share a photo / video on whatsapp. I guess that would also work for the files app. It’s extra steps but it’s worth it for me.

I only have WhatsApp for communication in a club committee I'm on. I have a whole separate Android profile to maximise it's separation from anything and everything else.

I gave up Samsung Galaxy entirely over this .. even ended up switching to iPhone because I couldn't find another Android I liked as much.

Every Galaxy I ever owned came with uninstallable facebook apps, despite paying over 1k for the phone.

On the last one I had, I went in and did the ritual deleting facebook, and going in the settings to disable their other background apps.

I checked the phone 8 months later, and found that they had installed even more facebook apps that were now running without my consent.

That was the end of those phones for me, and I'm amazed that I put up with it for so long.

> came with uninstallable facebook apps

You mean ununinstallable.

unremovable

While I still have WA installed for unrelated reasons, I'm so happy for Matrix Bridges...