In about a month, WhatsApp will stop working on some phones and will no longer even allow you to back up your chats: here's who is affected and what they have to do
On November 1, a couple of million Android users will wake up to a nasty surprise: the WhatsApp app will no longer work. It will not be possible to send messages or receive them, nor will it be possible to back up previous chats.
To have to say goodbye to WhatsApp on November 1, 2021 will be all users with Android phone in version 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). This version was launched by Google in March 2012 and the phones that still use it are now very few in the world, a small percentage of the total Android smartphones. But, since there are 3 billion Android smartphones globally, it's clear that we're talking about no less than 1-2 million WhatsApp users who will no longer be able to chat in about a month. WhatsApp has very good reasons to close the doors to these users and some advice to not lose the chats.
Why WhatsApp stops working
The speech is very simple: the older an operating system is, the more insecure and dangerous it is. The security technology of 2012 was not as robust as today's, and in almost a decade hackers have had way and time to find thousands of vulnerabilities in Android 4.0.4 and the apps that run on this operating system.
WhatsApp, on the other hand, can't afford to spend human and economic resources to update the app even for obsolete devices and, consequently, sets precise limits for the end of support for each version of Google's and Apple's operating systems.
Now it's Android 4.0.4's turn and there's no going back: from that day on, goodbye to WhatsApp, forever.
Goodbye WhatsApp: what to do
Those who have a phone with Android 4.0.4, therefore, would do well to back up their chat archive and change their phone to one with a recent version of Android.
To back up WhatsApp chats on Android you need to open the app, open the main menu in the top right corner (the one with the three dots) and then go to Settings > Chats > Backing up chats.
To know the version of Android installed on your phone, instead, you need to go to Settings > About phone > Android version.