About Wechat

As I enrolled back in University, more people have been asking me why I’m reluctant to use Wechat, so here are a few thoughts about this smartphone application…

Since technology is forever changing and the documentation I could find was mainly in Chinese, please feel free to correct me if you find anything that is not accurate in the following.

Wechat is a mobile text and voice messaging communication service developed by Tencent in China, first released in January 2011. It is the largest standalone messaging app by monthly active users.

While it has an amazing workflow to provide people with a painless setup and account creation, it has some sides that I consider as flaws and that keeps me from using it at this date:

In short, Wechat gives me the impression of pulling the Web backward, not pushing it forward.

But I still like some things about Wechat. ;)

There is also more interesting readings about Wechat .

I want protocols more than softwares

Wechat does not allow me the freedom of choice for the tools I like, simply because it’s one application that can only communicate with its own kind.

The best example I have in mind is XMPP that is used by many websites (Facebook and Google Talk come to mind) to allow their users to communicate. It allows its users to connect through websites or any software that supports XMPP. As a consequence, I could chat with contacts on Facebook without even opening the website (I’m using Pidgin for that). Email is also using protocols like IMAP which allows you to check your email in tons of different devices and softwares, and also allows me to backup Whatsapp conversations to my email account.

Wechat would be like asking everybody in one city to have the same car “sponsored” by a private company, which means you’ll probably need to get a new car in a different city. Protocols are more like a legislation that allows you to have any car that fits a public framework. Just imagine you’d also have to change car for every highway you’d take between cities and you’ll get a picture of the fragmentation this kind of applications creates.

Despite the apparent ease of use, we have now to use Wechat, Whatsapp, Telegram, Line, etc. just because they can’t or won’t allow interoperability.

A private company retains my data

I like to own my data: That means the services I use should at least allow me to export the content and interactions me and my contacts had. An export functionality like the ones available with “Download a copy of your Facebook data.” in the Facebook account management or the “Your Twitter archive” section in Twitter settings would be enough.

Although developing a closed platform is probably a lot easier, this also means everyone using it depends solely on one single company. I always thought limiting single points of failure is a good idea, but in Wechat and Tencent’s case, most of the data resides in China and this raises even bigger issues about privacy and censorship.

Glenn Greenwald made a good talk about privacy during TED 2014.

Also, for the little understanding I have about viruses, they would tend to like an homogeneous environment (not only with softwares, I’m afraid). Having only one entity (person or company) responsible for dealing with security problems is probably not the safest way.

I can’t access Wechat without the smart‑phone it’s installed on

In this day and age, I would expect to have acces to my messages from any platform I chose. Device agnosticism was the foundation of Internet; I don’t imagine any valid reason to drift away from it, besides the obvious fact that user retention brings more money in the bank. Would that mean that the tools we are offered are not designed with users in mind?

I do know there is a web interface for Wechat or Whatsapp, but it relies on a dependency at some point. Telegram is doing it better as you can login on any interface as long as you can have access to another active session of the same account (smartphone application or any browser).

I like it simple

I don’t need instantaneity of news (discover tab): I get informed when I meet my friends; it gives us topics to discuss about; it’s awesome.

I don’t need most of the modules in Wechat. Just having the basic chat system would be enough, so installing a 34Mb application for just chatting, although not problematic, seems like overkill.

Extensive access to the private information on my phone

When installing Wechat, you get asked to grant access to nearly all your information, be it on your phone or connected accounts. You can find the detailed list of authorization required for Android at the end of this article.

Access rights to all the information on my phone feels wrong: it feels like asking the marketing department (or worse) to see how they will better be able to sell me something. A more modular application like Line does it to some extents would probably solve this particular problem.

What I like!

I love that wechat is embedding a qr‑code scanner. The downside effect is that now, when people see a qr-code, they think they’re going to add a wechat contact when there is much more to qr-codes. My namecard is a qr-code, but it lives out of wechat.

Registration worflow is dead simple. When a software owns your device, it can do whatever it wants with it, and that can greatly improve the workflow.

More articles about Wechat, privacy, censorship, advertisement and user tracking.

Authorizations (detail)

In-app purchases

Device & app history

  • retrieve running apps

Identity

  • find accounts on the device
  • add or remove accounts
  • read your own contact card

Contacts

  • read your contacts
  • modify your contacts

Location

  • precise location (GPS and network-based)
  • approximate location (network-based)

SMS

  • read your text messages (SMS or MMS)

Photos/Media/Files

  • read the contents of your USB storage
  • modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Camera

  • take pictures and videos

Microphone

  • record audio

Wi-Fi connection information

  • view Wi-Fi connections

Device ID & call information

  • read phone status and identity

Other

  • receive data from Internet
  • read Home settings and shortcuts
  • download files without notification
  • set an alarm
  • create accounts and set passwords
  • run at startup
  • prevent device from sleeping
  • view network connections
  • install shortcuts
  • use accounts on the device
  • uninstall shortcuts
  • change your audio settings
  • toggle sync on and off
  • draw over other apps
  • modify system settings
  • full network access
  • pair with Bluetooth devices
  • access Bluetooth settings
  • send sticky broadcast
  • measure app storage space
  • connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
  • read sync settings
  • control vibration