According to the 2023 network security firm Kaspersky statistics, about 74% of gbwhatsapp users enable the “hidden online status” option (Last Seen), 43 percentage points higher than the 31% of the official WhatsApp and can set the precise control of “only certain contacts visible”. The probability of enabling Meta server-side audit mechanism has been reduced to 5.2%. With the “Freeze last online time” option (e.g., a fixed 3 hours ago display), the user behavior pattern camouflage success rate is 89%, but it can be biased by ±22 minutes due to a timestamp logic bug (based on Android 12 device test data). For example, in a 2022 Brazilian cyberstalking case, the victim used this option to maintain the abuser’s location success rate in the range 68% to 9% down.
gbwhatsapp backup feature end-to-end encryption supports AES-256, though only covers protection for the local storage path (i.e., /GBWhatsApp/Databases). Cloud synchronizing is dependent on a third-party tool (i.e., FolderSync). Its mean daily data breach risk is 0.7% (compared to 0.03% for official Google Drive backups). A 2023 survey of 3,000 users showed that 61% of users enabled the “anti-message withdrawal” function, and the intercept success rate of the other party’s withdrawal operation was 93%, but the probability of inducing version compatibility crash due to reverse engineering WhatsApp protocol was 17% (especially in API versions above v9.85). For example, the Indian police obtained important evidence through gbwhatsapp’s withdrawal log whenever they were investigating a business fraud case involving $2.3 million.
In the field of privacy enhancing tools, gbwhatsapp has an “application lock” option (support fingerprint or pattern), and the number of unsuccessful unlocks is limited to 5 times per day, and the probability of data self-destruction when reaching the maximum is 100%. Tests indicated that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s ultrasonic fingerprint recognition error rate was 0.8% (optical fingerprint models such as Redmi Note 13 Pro+ error rate was raised to 2.1%). In addition, “anti-screenshot” capability prevents chat screen shots (Android 11 and above), yet the bypass rate is still 14% (such as with ADB commands or third-party screen recording applications). Court filings made by Meta against gbwhatsapp in 2023 indicated that the layout of its privacy function resulted in a 29% rise in the misjudgment rate of the official risk control mechanism, and around 12,000 accounts were locked each day.
As far as IP and metadata safeguarding goes, gbwhatsapp provides the ability to hide the true IP address via “anonymous mode” (proxy server usage), but boasts a default shut-down state IP leak chance rate of 98%. When the Tor network integration feature is enabled (which involves manual config of the Orbot plugin), the latency increases to 3.7 seconds/message (up from 0.4 seconds with direct connectivity), whereas its success rate can only achieve a 72%. In 2022, Egyptian users not activating the feature exposed location details publicly, and the police cleared 12% of the total crime cases of the year. Additionally, the “fuzzy Geolocation” feature enhances GPS accuracy from 3 meters to 500 meters but uses 18% more power (based on tests on 5000mAh battery devices).
On the control of reading data, gbwhatsapp allows more specific Settings (such as only allowing contact to read or completely prohibiting) and App Annie statistics in 2023 have shown that its denial rate for permissions is 37% higher than that of the official client, but abnormal behavior possibilities are 23% (such as can’t send media files). For example, Xiaomi MIUI 14 system “storage isolation” for gbwhatsapp resulted in a 41% photo upload failure rate and required users to manually approve 1.2 times a day. Privacy Lab’s AV-TEST test noted that gbwhatsapp’s sandbox run environment reduced the likelihood of cross-contaminating data by 4%, but increased memory usage by 22% (peak usage was reduced from 1.3GB to 1.6GB for devices with 8GB RAM, for example).
Although gbwhatsapp offers multiple layers of protection from privacy attacks, its base protocol remains reliant on WhatsApp servers, and since Meta’s change in the authentication algorithm in 2023, the failure rate of unauthorized client login increased from 12% to 55%. When the virtual number functionality (similar to Google Voice) is enabled, number blocking probability drops to 19%, but the median delay to receive SMS verification codes is 47 seconds. According to Counterpoint statistics, close to 63% of gbwhatsapp users would rather put up with system instability for privacy features, yet the average daily complaint rate still stands at 24,000, mostly in the European Union and India.