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Viber 10 is here: a sleek new look, 2x faster, new privacy measures & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

The Rakuten-owned Viber messaging app released a major redesign effort this morning with a unified chat list, an overhauled call screen, additional privacy protections and more. In terms of eye candy, you'll definitely appreciate a bright, light header across the app.

Welcome to Viber 10

Viber 10 has a brand new design with a much sleeker look than before, but that's just the beginning because the app is now a lot faster and safer to use. The Viber service now sends messages 2x faster than ever. Plus, your voice and video calls now sound clearer than before.

Unified tabs, calls and contacts

With just three tabs at the bottom—Chat, Calls and More—replacing Viber's old tabs (Chats, Calls, Contacts, Public and More), the app is no doubt simpler to use than it used to be.

The unified call and contact list

The new organization minimizes tab switching because all your private and group chats, communities and public content are now in the main chat list.

Watch the new Viber in action right below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GaCOG4yyTE

The new Calls list holds your recent calls and your phone contacts in one place, with the Viber Out balance and your subscriptions displayed at the top of the screen.

Hidden-number Chats in Communities

Here's how Viber sells this feature:

As you spend more time in Communities on Viber, you will meet more and more new people who you wish to chat with directly.

Viber 10 includes Hidden-number Chats in Communities – a new, safe way for you to make new friends who share the same passions as you. Start chatting with them on Viber without revealing both sides’ phone numbers, until you both decide to do so.

They have added Hidden-number Chats in Communities in order to "encourage you to spark spontaneous connections" with other community members.

Viber 10 includes a new privacy-focused feature in Communities

Lastly, developers have officially confirmed in a blog post that group Viber calls with up to five people at the same time are scheduled to arrive "very soon".

Coming soon to Viber: group calling

Like WhatsApp, iMessage and other major messaging apps, Viber applies end-to-end encryption by default to all of your private and groups chats and voice/video calls.

Viber is a free download from App Store.

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NYT: Facebook to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger chats

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 25, 2019

Facebook is reportedly planning to integrate chats from its three major properties: WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.

This was reported Friday by The New York Times. A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed the report's findings via a written statement to the newspaper.

The different chats should be merged sometime in 2020.

According to sources, Facebook's boss and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently summoned WhatsApp employees to announce the merging of the company's messagings services.

They balked at the plan, the article reads:

On December 7, employees gathered around microphones at WhatsApp’s offices to ask Mr. Zuckerberg why he was so invested in merging the services. Some said his answers were vague and meandering. Several WhatsApp employees have left or plan to leave because of Mr. Zuckerberg’s plans, the people said.

If Facebook proceeds with the plan, customers will be able to start a chat with another user irrespective of whether they're on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram. As an example, a Messenger user could start chatting with a friend of Instagram, or vice versa. In another instance, a WhatsApp user would be able to chat directly with a contact on Instagram.

From the article:

By stitching the apps’ infrastructure together, Mr. Zuckerberg wants to increase the utility of the social network, keeping its billions of users highly engaged inside its ecosystem. If people turn more regularly to Facebook-owned properties for texting, they may forgo rival messaging services, such as those from Apple and Google, said the people, who declined to be identified because the moves are confidential. 

Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp will remain separate apps: the company will not merge them into a unified mega-app for chatting.

This integration would include end-to-end encryption to protect communications as the messages are transmitted between the three different chat services.

It was however unclear at post time how this would work in practice considering that people go by their real name on Facebook versus the anonymity that Instagram and WhatsApp provide.

Today, WhatsApp requires people to register only a phone number to sign up for the service. By contrast, Facebook and Facebook Messenger ask users to provide their real identities. Matching Facebook and Instagram users to their WhatsApp handles could give pause to those who prefer keeping their use of each app compartmentalized.

Is this a good idea, do you think?

Let us know in the comments!

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WhatsApp just launched stickers

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 26, 2018

The most popular chatting platform in the world, WhatsApp, used to lack support for the ever-popular sticker packs that have been available on rival messaging services such as Viber, Facebook Messenger and Apple's iMessage for years now, but that's now changing.

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