I wish it mentioned how safe this is. Some years ago I got banned for just logging in with a third-party client, without sending any messages. Given how critical WhatsApp is for some people, and how permanent the bans are, that's a big risk.

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watermelon0 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

You should use a separate WhatsApp account for bot purposes.

Recently, I used a separate WhatsApp account to interact with a group chat that I have with my friends. After about a week, they disabled the account, with no way to re-enable it.

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miroljub 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Since WhatsApp accounts are bound to phone numbers, getting a new phone number is a significant hurdle in many legislations.

An easier solution is to just not use WhatsApp at all and look for the alternatives for bot purposes. Telegram explicitly encourages bot usage with no risk of bans.

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uxhacker 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

And what ever happened to tools like jabber ? Or any other open source alternatives

	▲	jannes 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Jabber/XMPP was designed around persistent TCP connections. Push notification support came too late.

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ButlerianJihad 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> in many legislations

Do you mean “jurisdictions”?

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miroljub 2 days ago | parent [-]

I said "legislations" because the word describes the existence of laws, while "jurisdictions" describes the law enforcement.

There are still some European non-EU countries where you can get an anonymous phone number because laws are not fully enforced.

	▲	grey-area 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This is incorrect usage in English I'm afraid, and jurisdictions covers areas with different laws, 'legislations' is not used in this context.
	▲	ButlerianJihad 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Well, your usage is nonsensical in legal terms. Also, that is not the definition of “jurisdiction”. Nobody who knows law would use “legislation” in that sense, nor would they recognize it in that context, Humpty Dumpty.

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BoppreH 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

In my case I did, but it's still wasted time and money. And when breaking TOS there's always a chance of getting related accounts also banned, though I don't know if that has already happened with WhatsApp or not.

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predkambrij 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Happened to me on Telegram with their official app. Just because I opened it once when travelling. I got the account back, after 2 years. That's apparently the period to clean banned accounts. Tried to restore it by all means, just to see if that's possible. It wasn't. Though I didn't have anything important, I actually never sent a message. Now I use it for Openclaw :D