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IO.Hazard · 24. Mar 2014, 09:02 PM

Messaging apps are among the most downloaded app in the PlayStore. While some of them them are limited to text and image sharing, there are other that an be considered communication suites because, in addition to messages, they provide free voice and video calls to users who installed the same app, file sharing and notifications even when you are offline; interestingly, the "only for mobile" restriction is fading as some apps have desktop versions for different OSes besides the mobile ones.

Anupam hit the nail in the head when he said that the main cause of installing and app (and keep it installed) is popularity. You install two or three apps and check how many friends are using each one, then you choose the one that has the most of your contacts and uninstall the others, unless, of course, that you have the space and system resources to keep more than one installed.

There is the mobile data usage aspect too, if you have a lot of communication apps installed, your traffic will increase and your mobile data plan will run out faster, so it is good idea to check that on a daily basis.

As for the apps themselves, I think Tango is another app that the guys a KRDS Social Media Agency forgot to include. It is within the 100m to 500m downloads now and is hugely popular among those who prefer video calls (myself included

). The problem with Tango is that it takes a big amount of storage (45MB once installed) and its background process takes about 35MB of RAM

.

I liked Viber a lot, the voice call quality was close to perfection with WiFi and worked fine with the mobile data (it used about 360KB or so per minute). It had some security flaws at the time but most of them seem to have been fixed. I ended uninstalling it, though, because most of my friends didn't have their mobile data enabled all the time so they missed my messages and calls.

Besides Tango, I currently have WhatsApp and Telegram installed. I'm not a Facebook fan because of its privacy policy, so I got concerned when it acquired WhatsApp and it looks like the Germans though the same.

Let's hope users get more conscious about security and privacy and more open-source communication apps emerge.

24. Mar 2014, 09:02 PM	#3 (permalink)
IO.Hazard Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 117	Messaging apps are among the most downloaded app in the PlayStore. While some of them them are limited to text and image sharing, there are other that an be considered communication suites because, in addition to messages, they provide free voice and video calls to users who installed the same app, file sharing and notifications even when you are offline; interestingly, the "only for mobile" restriction is fading as some apps have desktop versions for different OSes besides the mobile ones. Anupam hit the nail in the head when he said that the main cause of installing and app (and keep it installed) is popularity. You install two or three apps and check how many friends are using each one, then you choose the one that has the most of your contacts and uninstall the others, unless, of course, that you have the space and system resources to keep more than one installed. There is the mobile data usage aspect too, if you have a lot of communication apps installed, your traffic will increase and your mobile data plan will run out faster, so it is good idea to check that on a daily basis. As for the apps themselves, I think Tango is another app that the guys a KRDS Social Media Agency forgot to include. It is within the 100m to 500m downloads now and is hugely popular among those who prefer video calls (myself included ). The problem with Tango is that it takes a big amount of storage (45MB once installed) and its background process takes about 35MB of RAM . I liked Viber a lot, the voice call quality was close to perfection with WiFi and worked fine with the mobile data (it used about 360KB or so per minute). It had some security flaws at the time but most of them seem to have been fixed. I ended uninstalling it, though, because most of my friends didn't have their mobile data enabled all the time so they missed my messages and calls. Besides Tango, I currently have WhatsApp and Telegram installed. I'm not a Facebook fan because of its privacy policy, so I got concerned when it acquired WhatsApp and it looks like the Germans though the same. Let's hope users get more conscious about security and privacy and more open-source communication apps emerge.