Why do I choose YoWhatsApp over other WhatsApp mods?

Whatsapp is one of the most popular messaging apps on the internet with over a billion users worldwide. It has all the features you can expect from a great messaging app and boasts of end-to-end encryption - the kind of security you need - and most people use it. However, there are many features that we want not included in the official WhatsApp. Available app keys, better privacy settings, the ability to send messages to unsaved numbers are all features that are required by many official apps.

So, some of us have switched to using mod. Now these mods have become so popular that many people have started using them. You don't need to be an Android expert to install and use them, and the features they provide are way better than the native application.

There are many mods available for Whatsapp. The most common ones are

YoWhatsapp (I use this)
GBWhatsapp
WhatsApp Plus
FMWhatsapp (most recent release)

There are also other mods. However, keep in mind that when using mods, it's likely that developers are sniffing your data, so making sure you are safe is a top priority.

Which one should you use?
Let me get this out of the way first; all these mods are pretty much identical to each other. However, it’s the little details that make one stand out from the other.

Updates
The most important aspect, in my opinion. Every time Whatsapp rolls out an update, the developers of these mods have to update their apps as well, which means you’re at the mercy of these devs to be able to be updated to the latest build version.

Why is this such a big deal? In every update, Whatsapp fixes one or two base issues with itself or enhances security. Since these apps are necessarily Whatsapp on steroids, keeping the base layer updated is always a good idea.

Out of all the apps mentioned above, YoWhatsapp gets the most regular updates and pretty quickly too. GBWhatsapp and WhatsappPlus come second.

Features
That’s the whole point of it.

Well, almost all these apps offer pretty much the same features. There’s only so much you can ask for anyway.
You’ll get more privacy features, the ability to hide or freeze your last seen and still being able to see the other person’s. You can set custom privacy options per contact, and you can have different chat backgrounds for every chat. The biggest of all — you can see deleted messages and even statuses.

You can even send any file and a lot bigger files than you usually could with WhatsApp. Images and videos are sent without any loss in quality or compression. You can choose to put long videos on your status, and the app would automatically split them for you.

There’s a lot of customisation as well. You can completely flip the way your Whatsapp looks by using different themes of creating your own. I find the YoThemes store a bit better than the GBThemes one, personally speaking.

Why I use YoWhatsapp?
I’ve tried many mods, and most of them are almost the same. However, I would get random bans on other mods, something which I never faced on YoWhatsapp except one time.

That one time was when the internet went all out on Whatsapp having a critical security vulnerability, and Whatsapp reacted to the backlash by updating its core version. Even then the dev took to twitter to explain what’s happening and stayed in constant touch until he fixed the problem.

And that was the biggest reason why I decided to stick with YoWa. The only developer, Yousef-al-Basha, is a reliable and fairly accessible person. This build of much-needed trust for the developer you need to use all the active applications with your personal data from time to time.

But it is really subjective, to be safe, do not share your personal or financial data, including login information on the mod. Or even on Whatsapp stock app.