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Comment by tombh | Hacker News Reader

In their own README:

> Using an unofficial client may be against WhatsApp's terms of service and could get an account suspended.

Same for all of these unofficial clients.

It’s really a shame that all of these unofficial clients are like this. APIs are APIs, if they’re on the public internet why can’t anybody call them? If there’s potential for abuse then that should be secured server side anyway, since needing a unofficial client isn’t going to stop hackers

It's irresponsible that the warning is hidden down in "Acknowledgements" and if you go via the homepage to download there's no warning at all.

I think this doesn't apply to European users, as WhatsApp announced around one year ago that under Digital Markets Act they were required to allow interoperability with third party providers [0].

0: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/dma-notice-non-users

I actually wish they'd delete the warning so then anyone who gets banned from WhatsApp for using an unofficial client would have a more legit cause of action against WhatsApp. Meta wouldn't be able to defend themselves with "well you were warned" if you weren't warned.

Oh, but it's in Meta's ToS of course! Didn't you study those before agreeing to them? /s

Dammit. I installed it, it worked beautifully, and now I don't want to risk it.

Eventually the unofficial client gets "fingerprinted" and its over. Its easy to remove the suspension, though. I vaguely remember it was through email.

Eh, there's no humans any longer IIRC. It's all down to whether their support AI blesses you or not.

I got banned for trying to move my chats from Android to iOS using the app rather than the special tool I didn't know you were supposed to use. I was lucky I eventually got unlocked.

I want a decent WhatsApp client that doesn't crash constantly and where you can search properly, but it's not worth the risk of getting banned again.

Too bad. WhatsApp might be a reasonable service if you could trust the client not to spy on you.

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