From October 24 Whatsapp will no longer be accessible on these smartphones

The instant messaging service WhatsApp will stop supporting its application on older versions of Android. Here you will find out who will be affected by this change and how.

Every year WhatsApp is turning off support for older versions of the Android and iOS operating systems, and, unfortunately, it is doing so at a faster pace than some users would like. But this is how modern applications work: devices running older versions of operating systems are not able to receive security updates and features that are necessary for messengers like WhatsApp to run. Before support is disabled, device owners receive appropriate notifications from the messenger.

WhatsApp will soon stop supporting these Android versions

Аt the beginning of 2023, WhatsApp stopped supporting devices that ran iOS 11. And now Meta Corporation, which owns this instant messaging app, has announced that will stop supporting WhatsApp  application on Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4. This means that the messenger will require the Android 5.0 platform released in 2014 or a more recent version of the operating system. These changes will take effect on October 24. The end of support will likely affect up to a million devices worldwide. This figure may seem large, but it still accounts for less than one percent of all gadgets on which WhatsApp is installed.

Will WhatsApp stop working for me if I have an old version of Android?

Unfortunately, after October 24, owners of devices running the Android 4 operating system will no longer have access to the WhatsApp app. You can check which version of Android is installed on your phone by going to Settings > About phone. Here you will get detailed information about the software of your device. If upgrading to Android 5 is no possible, some may want to switch to competing messaging apps. But problems will arise here too. Signal also requires Android 5.0 or later, while Telegram requires your phone to be running at least Android 6.0. You could download Messenger Lite, which supports Android 4, and stay connected via Facebook Messenger. However, this of course will not completely replace WhatsApp. Those who still want to use WhatsApp or other popular instant messaging applications will have to get a new smartphone. In addition, WhatsApp warns that it does not support setting up new accounts on devices that use only Wi-Fi.