There is no shortage of messaging options out there these days: Skype, Facebook Messenger, Viber, Telegram, WeChat, iMessage and of course Whatsapp are just a handful of the bigger names in the messaging arena. An interesting change came through with the last update on the Whatsapp mobile app; if you send or receive a link to telegram, either the main site or a profile try to follow it because it wont work!
As you can see, the message itself is not blocked but rather the hyperlink is disabled for it. An eagle eyed reader (thanks Steve) spotted this earlier today and it appears to be quite legitimate, Whatsapp appear to be blocking links to Telegram who have in recent times emerged as a big competitor to some of the older and more established messaging companies.
Given that Facebook purchased Whatsapp late 2014 and as a consequence they own several of the dominant messaging platforms in the world, it may not be a surprise to everyone that issues like this occur. We have contacted Whatsapp support about this to hopefully obtain a statement, but are yet to get a response.
How do you believe a block like this came to be in the app?
I discovered Telegram thru Ausdroid
a few months back.
Any publicity for Telegram is good publicity.
I now exclusively use Telegram to chat with wife. I now only have to convince 87 of my friends to switch to Telegram.
Apparently the block is hard coded into the app. Saw the reference to the offending code in another website.
Thats a gd spot, looks like telegram will get a good publicity with this ?