WhatsApp Now Available On Desktop Web Browser; Without 3rd Party Apps
One of the world’s most populous messaging app, WhatsApp, yesterday announced on its blog post. That users can now link their mobile phones to a new WhatsApp Web client that will enable them to read and write messages right from their desktop computers.
To use the new WhatsApp Web client, go to Web.WhatsApp.com using Google’s Chrome browser on your computer, where you will get a QR code displayed.
(Assuming you are running the latest WhatApp update on your phone) Open WhatsApp on your phone and click on a button saying ‘WhatsApp Web’ and using your phone’s camera take a picture of the QR code.
Your phone needs to be connected to the internet during the entire setup process. After you have successfully finished the setup process, you will now be able to read and write WhatsApp messages from both your phone and desktop computer. If you have followed the steps in the pictures successfully, you will now be able to chat with your WhatsApp contacts from your chrome browser.
Again, remember, your phone has to be connected to the internet for the chat to continue. Perhaps this is where WhatsApp messed up. They should have made it possible for users to continue chatting even without their phone being connected to the internet. That way if your phone is on a metered connection and your computer isn’t, you get to enjoy WhatsApps without worrying about bandwidth cost on your phone. In some places, like Kenya, most people use metered connections on their phones, and it doesn’t come cheaply.
Related: 3rd Party Apps that lets you use WhatsApps on your Computer
Advantages of WhatsApp Web Client
Writing messages will now be incredibly fast, given typing on a keyboard is much faster compared to typing on a smartphone.
Increased storage capacity for images and videos on your computer’s hard drive compared to your phone’s internal memory or microSD card.
If you spend long hours in front of a computer. Chatting with your WhatsApp contacts from your computer on one tab of the Chrome browser, while doing your normal work on other tabs is more convenient. Instead of moving from your computer to your phone, and back to your computer and repeating the same process over and over again, all day long.
FYI!! WhatsApp is not the first messaging app to offer such service, Asian messaging apps like WeChat and Line have had this service for some time now. So WhatsApps is just catching up.