A lot of negativity, but despite its limitations I already love it. (OK love's too much, but it's a big improvement for me at least.)<p>I don't use whatsapp with a huge number of people, but some of them I talk to daily on it. When we're both behind a computer (work hours, sometimes outside them) we'll often move to Skype to be able to type quicker. Skype's pretty horrible on phones (for me and most people I know), so usually prefer whatsapp when not using PCs/laptops.<p>Sure it's not a huge change, but just being able to type quickly when sat at my laptop, and not needing to keep grabbing my phone to see what's been said, is a great change for me. One that I was complaining about just the other day without realising this was around the corner.<p>In case anyone's interested, here's what it looks like for me in Chrome (nothing unexpected really): <a href="http://i.imgur.com/90C0v9V.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/90C0v9V.png</a><p>(Added bonus in the required app upgrade for WP8: message delivery status icons now shown in list of conversation, rather than just once you are inside a conversation - I know this feature was on at least one platform months ago, maybe all others, and it's [very slightly] annoyed me since I moved to Windows)
Does not work for iOS yet?
Edit: "At this time, WhatsApp Web is available only for Android, Windows Phone, Nokia S60, BlackBerry and BB10 smartphones." <a href="https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/web/28080003" rel="nofollow">https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/web/28080003</a>
So what exactly <i>is</i> whatsapp web?<p>[edit] Found the answer at <a href="https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/web/28080003" rel="nofollow">https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/web/28080003</a><p>> WhatsApp Web is a computer based extension of the WhatsApp account on your phone. The messages you send and receive are fully synced between your phone and your computer, and you can see all messages on both devices. Any action you take on the phone will apply to WhatsApp Web and vice versa.
Heck of a roll-out, guys.<p><pre><code> - only works on one browser
- requires interop with the mobile app
- supporting mobile app version on Android only
- supporting mobile app version not universally available on Android, presumably because of Google Play registry population or something.</code></pre>
I changed the UA on Frirefox, then whatsapp web started working. Firefix even showed desktop notifications.<p>BTW, you cannot have two web sessions going on at the same time. Once you start a new session on one browser, other detects and prompts<p>"WhatsApp Web is open on another computer or browser. Click “Use Here” to use WhatsApp Web in this window."<p>also, it needs phone to be connected to whatsapp service. So it sync from phone to your browser.
It works quite well. They've done a great job at following Google's "Material Design" prescriptions while -- surprisingly -- not actually using the Polymer framework. First time I've seen that.<p>The app loads some interesting libraries:<p>* CryptoJS 3.1.2 (for AES and HMAC-SHA256)<p>* punycode 2.1.4<p>* bluebird 2.5.3<p>* React 0.12.2 (with addons)<p>It's entirely possible that they really are doing end-to-end crypto...
So it seems to do some pairing between your phone and chrome? Not really what I call a web version. A real web version would run on, you know, any reasonably recent web browser.
There is a very good criticism here: <a href="http://andregarzia.com/posts/en/whatsappdoesntunderstandtheweb" rel="nofollow">http://andregarzia.com/posts/en/whatsappdoesntunderstandthew...</a> and I have to agree to all of it.
I appreciate most an Open API the same way Telegram[1] does. But at least, this is a -somewhat acceptable- first step.<p>[1] <a href="https://core.telegram.org/" rel="nofollow">https://core.telegram.org/</a>
Strange that this isn't on the frontpage, anyhow, for people who can't get it working for Android, try the following APK: <a href="http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/whatsapp-inc/whatsapp/whatsapp-2-11-498-apk/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/whatsapp-inc/whatsapp/whatsapp-...</a> (yes, it's not the newest release but they did a rollback after this version removing the web menu item). Reboot your phone after installing.
I have been using whatsapp-purple---a WhatsApp protocol implementation of libpurple [1] for some time now and it works really well.<p>That being said, accessing it from within a browser window has it's advantage. I currently have to install whatsapp-purple on all machines I use & syncronising chatlogs via Dropbox has it's challenges...<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/davidgfnet/whatsapp-purple" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/davidgfnet/whatsapp-purple</a>
To make the 'Whatasapp web' option show on the latest Android version on my phone I had to do this:<p>1. Back up your data (Whatsapp Menu > Settings > Chat Settings > Backup conversations)<p>2. Go to 'App Info' for Whatsapp had to 'Clear data' (Settings > Applications > Applications Manager > Whatsapp)<p>3. Restart phone<p>4. Access whatsapp -> enter your phone number -> restore from backup<p>5. The 'Whatsapp Web' should appear under menu now
I know everyone is complaining about Chrome only support, but the more important question we should be asking is what technology stack are they using for the web client?<p>It's well documented that Whatsapp is a Erlang shop.<p>Did they stay with using Erlang for the web as well ... or did they switch to another technology like Nodejs, etc?
It's 2015, we use multiple devices, phones, tablets, computer, smart TVs, and they still didn't figure that out?<p>Come on, ICQ, Telegram, Groupme, Viber and tons of other apps have multiple clients for multiple devices.<p>Sadly people take too long to change, or else WhatsApp would be dead already.
This is sweet.<p>I like being able to chat with my friends while I am at work so I'm glad to see WhatsApp bringing web access.<p>Hopefully iOS support is around the corner, but given how often iOS gets preferential treatment over Android, I'm okay with my Droid friends getting first crack at it.
Can anybody explain how this is supposed to work in combination with the end-to-end encryption that's allegedly implemented in the Android client? I can see all my Android to Android conversations in the Web client.
While maybe not directly on topic, I've never seen the point of Whatsapp over plain SMS, or for that matter any of the other chat apps that can do way more (Google Hangouts, Skype, etc)... what's the point?
What did they do in an add-on that won't work in Firefox? Chrome add-ons and Firefox add-ons are rather close; I have one that has about 80% common code.
This is apparently not available in my country (Brazil) ...<p>Whatsapp
version 2.11.476
updated on 16 jan 2015<p>I guess it's only limited to US and other regions.
Unfortunately it is not a desktop client and you have to open the browser all the time to open it.<p>Use this to get a desktop client on mac<p><a href="http://lifepluslinux.blogspot.in/2015/01/whatsapp-web-desktop-client-for-mac.html" rel="nofollow">http://lifepluslinux.blogspot.in/2015/01/whatsapp-web-deskto...</a>
The title should more correctly say "Whatsapp for Google Chrome". You can't really say it's for "web" if Chrome is the only browser you support.