Facebook's WhatsApp may bring messaging service to the web: Reports

Mobile messaging app WhatsApp is rumoured to working on a version of its messaging service for the web, Business Insider reported. The rumours started shortly after rival messaging app Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov told TechCrunch that he thought WhatsApp was working on a web version "since they tried to hire our web dev."

While WhatsApp had to yet make an official mention of a web version of its popular messaging app, a recent discovery by the team at AndroidWorld.nl appeared to back up Durov's suspicions.

The code of a recent WhatsApp update contains the mention of "WhatsApp Web."

Additionally, the code also mentioned logging in to a web service as also references to tracking statuses online.

According to commentators, it was not definite proof, but it certainly looked like the WhatsApp team was at least exploring some sort of web functionality.

With over 600 million users, WhatsApp, the largest messaging service that still does not offer a web version, unlike competitors Line, Viber, Telegram and WeChat, which allowed users to message either on their phone or the via the web.

As the codes did not mention Facebook anywhere, it seemed likely that the company did not want people to login through their Facebook accounts, but rather use their phone number for any pairing and verification.

While it still could not be said to be a concrete proof that there would be a web client for WhatsApp, it hinted that the company was exploring such functionalities.

People had long been looking forward to WhatsApp's desktop or web client for years and this in fact was one of the reasons why AirDroid and several other applications that offered workaround (mostly mirroring) to get WhatsApp messages on desktop were so popular.