WhatsApp Is Killing Popular 3rd Party WhatsApp+ Client By Temporarily Banning Users Until They Switch To The Official App

WhatsApp is one of the world's most popular messaging services, and with popularity comes interest from the 3rd party development community. WhatsApp, though, is now a Facebook property, and what once may have seemed like flattery is now being pursued as a TOS violation. The hugely popular client WhatsApp+ is the target of this ire, and WhatsApp seems to be taking no prisoners - WhatsApp+ users are getting 24 hours bans from the WhatsApp service, and are being directed to download the official app on the Play Store instead.

If this seems a tad draconian, that's because it is! While I think we can all understand WhatsApp's desire to maintain control of the user experience of its service, WhatsApp+ has been around for years, and users of the enhanced client are understandably furious at WhatsApp's decision to start dropping 24-hour banhammers like it's release day for a new Call Of Duty on Xbox.

Users are given a 24-hour countdown timer and directed to what appears to be an un-indexed page on WhatsApp's official FAQ , shown below in video

The implication of the language at the end would seem to be that continued use of WhatsApp+ will result in continued bans, so it's pretty safe to say, I think, that the app is basically dead, at least for now. WhatsApp+'s Google+ page has been updated with a statement by the page owner, saying that users should "use the normal whatsapp till a fix is found.. Very sorry for this issue as whatsapp is pushing us into a car er [sic]" - I think he means corner. Either way, I wouldn't take much solace in those words, as it sounds like WhatsApp is very much trying to shut the third-party app down for good.