WhatsApp Plus has features, privacy settings, and overall user experience that are far less than official WhatsApp app. WhatsApp Plus, an unofficial version of the app that allows for a wider variety of customizations like themes and font and color settings. Official WhatsApp only provides some basic design flexibility to maintain same interface on all devices. It has support for more than 700 themes that can be downloaded in-app to offer a deeply personalized experience.
WhatsApp Plus also has some privacy features that make it stand out. Per-contact hiding of “last seen,” blue ticks, and typing indicators is possible as well — something not available in standard WhatsApp. Moreover, WhatsApp Plus offers a DND mode which allows users to silence all incoming messages without having to disconnect from the internet. That offers some flexibility but also poses privacy risks because the developers behind WhatsApp Plus are not authorized or supported by Meta (the owner of WhatsApp).
Another feature that sets WhatsApp from WhatsApp Plus is file-sharing options. Unlike the official app that allows sharing video and documents of up to 16 MB, WhatsApp Plus facilitates file sizes all the way to 50 MB which means it suits users who often sends large media files without losing quality. The larger limit accommodates more types of media being exchanged — a particularly practical feature for users in professional contexts or content creation jobs.
But these capabilities come with some big compromises. WhatsApp Plus does not support the end-to-end encryption that makes the official WhatsApp so secure, preventing message interception. As noted by cybersecurity expert Eva Galperin, “unofficial messaging apps don’t have the same safe frameworks to isolate user data” while messages sent on WhatsApp Plus can be accessed by any machine. Moreover, your account could also be suspended for this reason; in 2022, more than 2 million WhatsApp accounts were banned for using the app since it is against its terms of service to use modified Whatsapp apps such as Whatsapp plus.
It is also not free of downloading WhatsApp Plus, as it needs installation via third-party sources thus avoiding Google Play Protect and leaving devices open to malware. According to a report by Forbes, apps downloaded from outside of the official stores are almost 40% of Android malware cases which means WhatsApp Plus users could be more prone to being infected on their devices.
WhatsApp official app enjoys regular updates and confirmed security features, while WhatsApp Plus has more customization options also better privacy control but lacks the official support and verification. In contrast, users who are thinking about whatsapp plus should take this into account when weighing these differences between additional features and security/account risks that come with using an unofficial app.