The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Baylor3217 on July 28, 2013, 09:33:33 AM
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Im currently paying $20 / month for unlimited and looking to save some more cash.
Pros?
Cons?
Security concerns?
Does it only work if the person you're texting is on what's app?
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I use Whatsapp.
Pros?
-Free communication (the app cost me $.99 but was free for other people - but I think that the cost is negligible given the usage of it)
-I get to talk to my one Israeli friend. He is in Israel. Our phones are texting for free. Maybe I'm just overly impressed by technology, but this is extremely cool to me. When he want to send me a video of him karaoking songs with my name in it, he can do it at no cost.
-Said Israeli uses this app to communicate with our friends in Ecuador (where we initially met).
-Other person I met uses the app to communicate with his brother in Switzerland.
tl;dr It's a globally accessible app.
Cons?
It's really annoying to get texts when you are sleeping. One thing with having texters and textees around the globe is that pretty much no one is in the same time zone.
Security concerns?
I don't have any. Whatever.
Does it only work if the person you're texting is on what's app?
Yes. It's a pain and means that the other person has to have a smartphone, but that's getting more and more common in today's world.
Other questions/requests for clarification welcome.
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There's nothing magical about WhatsApp, it's nothing more than an instant messenger application on a mobile phone.
There's other proprietary, better compressed, (some) more secure, cheaper, and less intrusive apps with better security records and (some) less offensive privacy policies than WhatsApp on a whole assortment of supported phone platforms. There's also Nimbuzz, XMS, Fring, Viber, KakaoTalk, and Kik (amongst others) on the proprietary ends, and let's not forget about AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger, Google Talk and their accompanying applications as well as other various XMPP supporting applications like Talkonaut.
Kik has decent data compression (roughly 1000 SMS sized messages per MB), decent low-bandwidth push notification methods, minimal battery life impact, has only moderately invasive privacy policies, covers a fair number of mobile platforms, and doesn't cost a dime. Unfortunately, everyone's pretty well got some form or another of a spotty security record, so do keep that in mind on how you handle your username/password.
Whoever you choose, look into past security issues, read the privacy policy of the company providing the service, be sure the apps support the phone platform you and your buddies are both using, and you're both willing to use it.
Of course, if you actually went with Ting (IIRC), the prices for texting through them are dirt cheap already and if I were you, I personally wouldn't bother with texting alternatives unless others are rattling for it because they're trying to cut their bills down as well and aren't on Ting.
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IP Daley has a fair point that there are many, many alternatives to Whatsapp. I do use Google Voice on my phone and my computer. I found it extremely handy when I was living in Ecuador and wanted to call home.
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You could use google voice to actually text people w/o an app. I like it because you can also text from your computer which is nice when you're lazy. I use GroupMe & supposedly you can text people from it, but I haven't tried it yet.
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You could use google voice to actually text people w/o an app. I like it because you can also text from your computer which is nice when you're lazy.
It's not lazy to text from your computer. It's efficient. ;)