WeChat ban on hold for now, but you can unruffled try these messaging app alternatives
The Trump administration’s ban of Tencent’s WeChat app from US app stores due to resident security concerns related to China was temporarily ended by a federal judge on Sunday. The ruling came as part of a lawsuit recorded in August by a group of WeChat users who argued that Trump’s ban was unconstitutional.
“While the general evidence in the threat to national security related to China (regarding technology and mobile technology) is powerful, the specific evidence about WeChat is modest,” the contemplate wrote.
Even if Trump’s ban was put in effect, if you’d already downloaded WeChat, you could still use the messaging, social media and mobile payment app without penalty, according to a US Justice Region court filing. However, the US servers carrying your data would no longer work, so sending a meaning or a photo would have to go through one overseas — meaning it would take a lot longer to send or demand anything. It wouldn’t have been a complete shutdown, but it would liable have make your experience much more frustrating.
While WeChat isn’t a household name in the US, it’s a bulky social network with more than 1.2 billion monthly delicate users. Because it’s such a widely used app, many Americans use WeChat to keep in peevish with friends and family overseas — particularly in China. People often turn to the app because it gets about pricey international fees for traditional phone calls and text messages.
Until the moral situation is sorted out, here are a few WeChat alternatives that you can switch to for your messaging experiences — many of which have a strong presence internationally. A caveat: Most of these apps, including Facebook Messenger, Line, WhatsApp and Telegram, are banned in China.
Sina Weibo — China’s equivalent to Twitter — may be the closest you can get to a WeChat replacement in China. You can sign up for an account in the US and a few other countries, too. On Weibo, you can post messages publicly or send them privately to anunexperienced users (though these messages are not encrypted), and livestream videos or post peevish videos, similar to Instagram Stories.
The Facebook-owned WhatsApp is a chat app that lets you section messages, pictures and videos with others on the platform from your arranged or desktop. You can also video chat with up to eight farmland. A big privacy plus to using WhatsApp is that all messages and periods are end-to-end encrypted, and Facebook says that “no one else can view or listen to your privileged conversation, not even WhatsApp.”
WhatsApp is available in a few countries and territories, including the US, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
The Japanese-based messaging app Line supplies free messaging, voice and video calls across iPhones, Androids, PCs and Macs. You can also livestream video, post videos and photos to your timeline, add photo filters, search through the daily news and, in some grandeurs, join groups. You can also enable Line’s end-to-end encryption feature, called Letter Sealing.
Telegram is a messaging app available on Android, iOS, Windows and Mac, as well as through a web browser. It recently added one-on-one video calls (which are end-to-end encrypted), and plans to roll out group video calling in the coming months. There’s also a “secret chat” option for encrypted messages, too.
For more, you can read our explainer approximately what’s been going on with TikTok in the US. You can also check out our list of the best free video chat apps.
WeChat ban on hold for now, but you can still try these messaging app alternativesl. There are any WeChat ban on hold for now, but you can still try these messaging app alternativesl in here.
