WhatsApp is a free and secure instant messenger that allows you to keep in touch with all your friends or family, you can download and install it on all platforms.
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Downloads:
20724 -
Release date :
12/12/2022 -
Author :
WhatsApp -
Licence :
Free license -
Categories:
Communication
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Operating system :
Android, Online service All Internet browsers, Windows 10/11, Windows 32 bits – XP/Vista/7/8/10/11, Windows 64 bits – XP/Vista/7/8/10/11, iOS iPhone, macOS
WhatsApp plays censorship. The Meta subsidiary announced in a blog post posted on January 5, 2023 that it would now be possible to connect to the instant messaging service via proxy servers.
WhatsApp wants to help the Iranian population
Concretely, this allows any user to continue to send and receive WhatsApp messages, even if access to the service has been cut in the country. Using a proxy makes it possible to thwart censorship, because the connection will not be established directly to the firm’s servers, but via a relay machine “configured by volunteers and organizations around the world” which will then redirect the data to WhatsApp’s servers. Thus, it becomes almost impossible for Internet service providers to cut off access to the instant messaging tool, unless they completely cut off Internet access.
The company does not hide having launched the feature to help the Iranian people whose access to WhatsApp has been cut for several months. “These cuts, which have been occurring for several months, violate human rights by preventing the population from receiving urgent aid” writes the company in its announcement post. Of course, even by connecting to a proxy server, the messages remain end-to-end encrypted to avoid giving grain to grind to the ears a little too indiscreet.
Using a proxy on WhatsApp is not very complicated. Just go to the app settings, go to the section Data Usage and Storage then fill in the proxy settings in the appropriate section. The hardest part is finding the address of a trustworthy proxy provider. For that, WhatsApp advises to go through “social networks or search engines“.
WhatsApp thus joins Signal and other messaging apps that have already implemented proxy systems to circumvent censorship. The use of proxies is not, however, an unbeatable solution to censorship. As with VPNs, it is possible for ISPs to cut off access to a particular server once it is known to exist. That said, the greater the number of proxy servers, the more difficult it is to find them all.
If you’re feeling like a militant hacker, instructions for setting up a WhatsApp proxy server are available on the company’s GithHub.