It was only a short time ago that WhatsApp had rolled out encryption to all of its users, and this week the messaging service evolved into another form, taking a hint from Skype, Voxer, and others and officially launching on the web.
WhatsApp says calls new web client “simply an extension of your phone: the web browser mirrors conversations and messages from your mobile device.” All of the messages that you see on your smartphone, you’ll also see on your browser, letting you continue the conversation across all of your devices.
WhatsApp Web nearly eliminates the need to have a native application for desktop operating systems, though native apps are still better with things like notifications and feeling natural — you can see this by looking at the differences in the look and feel between the Windows Phone version of WhatsApp and the Android version of WhatsApp.
We first heard whispers of WhatsApp Web back in mid-December.
To connect your web browser to your WhatsApp client, simply open https://web.whatsapp.com in your Google Chrome browser. You will see a QR code — scan the code inside of WhatsApp, and you’re ready to go. You have now paired WhatsApp on your phone with the WhatsApp web client. Your phone needs to stay connected to the internet for our web client to work.
Of course, the new service also comes with updates for the mobile clients, so you’ll also want to install the latest version of WhatsApp on your phone.
As for Apple users, WhatsApp says:
“Unfortunately for now, we will not be able to provide web client to our iOS users due to Apple platform limitations.”