WhatsApp for Android gets default end-to-end encryption

If you are a privacy lover and don’t want the possibility of others (including the government) reading your chat conversations, there is some good news on the WhatsApp front. This popular messaging service has announced that the latest Android version of its Messenger app includes default end-to-end encryption, thus making the communication on the service secure.

Although, there have always been secure messaging clients available, the inclusion of end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp will immediately bring secure messaging to millions of users.

In a blog post, Open Whisper Systems revealed that WhatsApp is using its open-source TextSecure protocol to make encrypted messaging possible.

Although the group messages or media messages don’t yet support encryption, WhatsApp and Open Whisper Systems are working to make it possible soon.

It is important to note here that only the latest Android version of the app currently supports the encryption, so chats with older versions of WhatsApp or on other platforms will still be unencrypted, however the companies are hard at work to bring end-to-end encryption to all of WhatsApp users.

“WhatsApp runs on an incredible number of mobile platforms, so full deployment will be an incremental process as we add TextSecure protocol support into each WhatsApp client platform. We have a ways to go until all mobile platforms are fully supported, but we are moving quickly towards a world where all WhatsApp users will get end-to-end encryption by default,” wrote Open Whisper Systems in the blog post.

Note: The latest version of WhatsApp for Android is only available via WhatsApp website right now and yet to be released in Google Play, but it should happen very soon.