Now with 100m users globally, Kik was released in 2010 and quickly hit 1 million users in just 14 days.īlackBerry’s Messenger is the grandfather of the phone instant messaging apps. Kik is available on the iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, Nokia’s Ovi store and BlackBerry. It also integrates a web browser into the application allowing users to browse content and share it directly with their friends. Line Corporation is headquartered in Japan, a subsidiary of South Korea’s online content and search company Naver Corporation.Īnother messaging app alternative, Kik Messenger sends texts, images and voice messages over a smartphone’s data connection avoiding mobile operator messaging charges. Line has 350 million users globally, expanding rapidly from 10 million in December 2011 according to data from Statista.

The Line messaging app is available for almost every computer and mobile platform, including Windows, OS X, the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Nokia’s Asha and even Firefox OS. WhatsApp’s biggest competitor is Line, a messaging app that lets users send text messages, images, video and audio, was well as make phone calls over the internet or video conference. While WhatsApp is certainly the most high-profile text messaging replacement app in the UK, it is by no means the only horse in the race. From a personal data standpoint, this is extremely worrying.” “Now with Facebook buying WhatsApp, this could see more and more private information becoming part of Facebook’s database. Meanwhile, Facebook already has a very broad copyright license on people’s content and already shares your data with many other services,” explains StJohn Deakins, chief executive of online identity service Citizenme. “Currently, WhatsApp can change terms and conditions at any time, without notifying users, which many people who use this service aren’t aware of.

Facebook has bought messaging app WhatsApp, which means those who have been avoiding feeding their data into the world’s biggest social network might think about switching to another instant messaging service.Īs WhatsApp is based on phone numbers rather than usernames, Facebook has in effect just bought a list of hundreds of millions of phone numbers.

Who own whatsapp