Viber is a proprietary multi-platform Voice over Internet Protocol instant messaging software for smartphones developed by Viber. In addition to text messaging, users can exchange images, videos, and media messages. Viber is available for MacOS, Android, Blackberry OS, iOS, Symbian, Bada, Windows Phone, and Microsoft Windows. A version of the software for Linux is in development and is currently in public testing. The 3G mobile network is a collaborative project of the 3G mobile network and Wi-Fi. In order to work with the software on a desktop-based operating system, it is necessary to have the Viber software installed on a phone. Viber reached 200 million users on May 7, 2013.
Viber was founded by 4 Israeli colleagues: Telman Marko, Igor Magzinyk, Sunny Maroli and Ofer Smecha.
History
Viber was first released for iPhone on December 2, 2010, to compete directly with Skype. A pre-release build for Android appeared in May 2011 but was limited to 50,000 users; An unrestricted version was released on July 19, 2012. Viber was released for Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices on May 8, 2012. Reaching 50 million users on July 24, 2012, group messaging and a high-quality audio engine were added to both the Android and iPhone applications. This software was announced for Nokia 40 series, Symbian and Samsung’s Bada operating system on the same day. At first, the voice call feature was only available for iPhone and Android software, with the promise that voice calls will be available in the upcoming versions of Bada, Symbian and Windows Phone will be added, but there was no mention of BlackBerry OS and Nokia’s 40 series. This limitation appears to be due to the Blackberry core and Nokia 40 series not readily supporting Voice over Internet Protocol software. As promised, on September 22, 2012, high-quality voice calling and group messaging for Windows Phones installed on Nokia devices are, made available as part of an exclusive partnership with Nokia. Viber with voice calling was officially released for all Windows Phone 8 devices on April 2, 2013. In August 2013, Viber was released as a public beta for Linux. . Initially, a 64-bit binary version was made available for download. On February 13, 2013, Rakuten announced the purchase of Viber for $900 million.
Features and facilities
The main features of this program on Android, IOS and Windows Phone operating systems are conversations through the Internet, sending text and photos, emoticons, etc. This program is completely free for users. To register in this program, the person’s mobile phone number must be announced to it, and the program login code will be announced to the user through a short message. Also, users can install the program on their personal computer or tablet using the same mobile phone and use this program on all of them. Using the phone book in the mobile phone, Viber identifies other people who have installed the above software and are in the phone book and puts them in the list of friends in the above software. The new version of this software also allows its users to add new emoticons. Some of these emoticons can be obtained by paying a fee and some are free.
Languages and localization
Viber is currently available in 30 languages: Farsi, English, Hebrew, Albanian, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Nepali, Portuguese, Urdu, Spanish, Swedish, Russian and Ukranian
Company
Viber Media is a Las Vegas company registered in Cyprus and its development centers are located in Belarus and Israel. The company was founded by Telman Marko and Igor Magzinyk, who were friends while working in the Israel Defense Forces. The company is run in Israel, but much of its production and development is done in Belarus due to lower labor costs. done.
Privacy issues
Viber software has been criticized for poor data protection. Viber collects a lot of data, much more than other similar software (like Skype); Both the information of users of the Skype service and non-users of this service (such as the information of phone numbers of the user’s phone, outside of Viber). Much of this data is collected without the consent and knowledge of users, which violates the “data protection laws” of the European Union. Viber also does not specify when and for what purposes it uses the collected data, and to whom this data is available. they take.
The issue of eavesdropping and espionage
There are news and reports that the software has access to the user’s phone numbers, text messages, dialed numbers, even those that are not part of the software, and has the ability to detect the user’s geographic location, as well as the user’s recorded audio, photos, and videos. get access Viber is also able to see all the files on the phone, and even the user’s settings and installed apps.
hack
On July 24, 2013, the backup of the Viber system was damaged by the Syrian Electronic Army. According to Viber, no sensitive user information was made available in the meantime.
Viber’s revenue model
One of the topics that has always occupied the minds of consumers of this type of messaging networks is the revenue model of these applications. Many of these applications do not have a special revenue model or even do not implement them in the early years of their launch, because they must first encourage users to use their service and after this stage begin to commercialize their service with direct and indirect methods. Subscription, advertisement, sticker and big data analysis are among the most important methods of generating income in these applications.
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