WeChat

WeChat is a chat application for Android that incorporates voice and video call functions, as well as others that make it similar to a social network.

One of the best chat applications

No one can deny that WhatsApp is the world king of instant messaging and chat applications. With over a billion users, nobody even comes close, no matter how many applications have tried to become the best alternative to this messenger, as is the case with Telegram, LINE, Facebook or Skype. However, there are countries where it is not the dominant messaging app, as in the case of China. Here, the clear winner is WeChat, a complete chatting app that improves on the features of its competitors

Key Features

And among all the features that it includes to stand up to its rivals, we can highlight all sorts of functions and features that bring it closer to being a social network instead of just being a simple communication tool. These are the most notable aspects of the service:

• Multimedia Messages: Support for text messages, video, images and voice.
• Group chats and calls: supports video calls with up to 9 participants and group chats with up to 500 members.
• Free voice and video calls using the VoIP protocol to communicate with people from all over the world.
• WeChat Out calling system to call landline and mobile numbers from all over the world, albeit restricted in some countries.
• WeChat Pay mobile payment system with support for QR and/or native in-app and web systems (limited to certain countries).
• Complete gallery of emoticons and stickers to use in your messages.
• Moments serve to exchange sequences of personal images.
• Make friends with Friendship Radar, Friends Radar, Nearby People and Shake your Phone features.
• Possibility to share your location in real time.
• Customized Notifications.
• Desktop client for PC and Mac compatible with your mobile account to pick up conversations where you left them last.
• Drift Bottle Function: Sending messages in a bottle that any user around the world can receive.
• Link your Facebook account to WeChat.

As we can see, it packs a multitude of features in a single application that are also present in several other popular messaging apps. Hence, we can consider it as an all-in-one application. In addition, its features of meeting other users nearby increase its social aspect.

More privacy for your communication

One of the biggest concerns of users of messaging applications must be privacy. In many services, once you hit the send button, you lose all control over the message as it is then stored on external servers.

However, this app tries to solve this problem by storing our news log offline on our mobile so that we can only access it from our smartphone.

Therefore, while using this application, you will be more confident than others, although not completely sure. Even if end-to-end encryption increases your level of privacy, there's nothing you can do if your phone has been infected by some sort of spyware or keylogger like the CIA's tools, according to WikiLeaks. So if you don't want anyone else to have access to your conversations, just don't post it.

It's free to download and use, although it also offers us in-app purchases to purchase certain elements. Also, you can use the various Windows, web, and macOS clients to chat from your computer's desktop.

What's new in the latest version?

• Minor bug fixes.

Requirements and further information:

• Minimum operating system requirements: Android 4.4.
• The app offers in-app purchases.