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Technology

Indians have somehow managed to run WhatsApp on a JioPhone. Here’s how

indiatoday.com

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Jio is reportedly working on an Android smartphone to launch later this year. The key reason behind planning for an Android phone, after gaining wide popularity with its Jio 4G feature phone is possibly to let users use WhatsApp or other social media apps on their cheap feature phones. India is one of the key markets for WhatsApp, as it includes millions of users onboard, and this proves to be one of the major disadvantage for Jio as JioPhone doesn’t support WhatsApp. You can neither use any other social media apps like Facebook or Instagram on JioPhone. But, surprisingly, tens of thousands of JioPhone users managed to run WhatsApp on their JioPhone, and this is how they did it.

We know that Jio has managed to sell millions of JioPhone in the country. Given that, one JioPhone user managed to discover a way out to use WhatsApp on JioPhone via Browserling. It (Browserling) provides a cross-browser testing tool to the web developers. The user found out that you can use WhatsApp on JioPhone via web.whatsapp.com. Soon after discovering the method, the JioPhone user uploaded a video of the same online, and in no time the video went viral, with thousands of shares, likes and also comments.

Millions of JioPhone users followed the instructions given in the video and started using WhatsApp on their feature phone. Meanwhile, several vloggers started creating more videos regarding how you can use WhatsApp on JioPhone. As a result of which, Peter Krumins Co-founder of Browserling “started getting crazy traffic, thousands, then tens of thousands of visitors, and it just kept increasing from India, all trying to use Browserling as a WhatsApp proxy tool.”

Meanwhile, as Peter revealed to Scroll, he used this as an advantage to gain more traffic and followers for Browserling. “I created this message and asked users to follow Browserling and tweet messages about it,” he notes. “And they did. All these users started following Browserling and tweeting about it. “I started getting thousands of new followers and tens of thousands of tweets about Browserling,” Peter further added.

To use WhatsApp via Browserling on your JioPhone you will need to pay Rs 9 for one day. This is one of the plans. There are other plans as well. “I’m currently running a multivariate test on various plans and prices to find which ones are the most popular. I randomly display an option to buy a daily plan, a weekly plan, or a monthly plan with a different price,” says Peter. The website accepts payment via a newly designed Indian payment processor called Instamojo — which is specifically designed for the Indian users.

“I’m using the local Indian payment processor called Instamojo, which is Stripe for India and integrates together all possible Indian payment methods,” notes Peter on the payment process. There’s also a way to use the messaging app for free that is via Browserling Lottery. “The lottery had a countdown timer and gave a 50 per cent chance of winning,” Peter adds.

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