• Technology Whatsapp says it accepts EU rules on privacy and will be more transparent

Using WhatsApp will now be much easier for those who have more than one phone. Meta has finally announced a multi-device support that will allow you to receive and send messages on up to four different phones using the same account.

It's not WhatsApp's first foray into cross-device support. For years it has been possible to use the application with a PC or tablet, and send and receive messages from them. The main account, however, could only be on a single phone.

The reason is that the architecture of the service is a bit different from other messaging servers, which store messages on a server that multiple devices can access. In WhatsApp, messages are sent directly to the recipient's phone encrypted and it is the only place where they are stored, unless the user uses some storage in the cloud to save a copy.

When you register a PC or tablet – or a web browser – to send and receive messages, what is being created is a link between the main phone and that device. For all intents and purposes, messages are always sent and received from the phone, even if it is controlled "remotely".

This will also continue to be the case with the new multi-device support for mobile. Only one of them will be the main one but now up to three more phones will be able to access the messages and send them remotely.

The process is similar to what is now used in computers. In the coming weeks, when Meta begins to activate the service, when installing WhatsApp on the phone the user will have the option to specify that they already have an active line on another device. the screen will display a QR code, and when scanned from the primary phone, the devices will be paired.

The feature will make life much easier for small businesses, for example, that need to respond via WhatsApp to their customers. Until now there were tricks to facilitate this task, such as using the web version of WhatsApp from the mobile, but none really optimal.

The different phones will keep synchronized up to a year of messages and that means that, when registering a new phone, you can also access the history of chats and the groups in which you participate. If the primary device is idle for a long period of time (several weeks), all paired devices will lose synchronization for security.

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