WhatsApp Is Changing on Windows, and Your Galaxy Book Might Not Like It

WhatsApp remains the most popular messaging app, boasting over 2 billion monthly active users. If you use WhatsApp on your Galaxy Book, there is a change on the horizon that you probably won’t be thrilled about. Meta is quietly testing a new version of WhatsApp’s Windows app, and it is bad news for anyone who values performance.

WhatsApp for Windows scraps the native app in favor of web wrapper

Folks over at Windows Latest spotted some changes in the latest WhatsApp Beta for Windows that replace the native Windows app with a web wrapper built on Microsoft’s WebView2. It looks just like WhatsApp Web in a browser because that is essentially what it is. While it is only in beta for now, this strongly hints that Meta plans to roll it out to everyone soon.

Credits: Windows Latest

The current native app, built with WinUI, is lightweight, responsive, and fits perfectly into Windows 11’s Fluent Design. It’s also easy on system resources. The new version? Not so much. Early testers have found that the web-based app uses around 30% more RAM and feels slower across the board.

Notifications are handled differently as well, and they’re less reliable when the app isn’t running in the background. This could be a major downgrade for Galaxy Book users who rely on WhatsApp for real-time messages, calls, or productivity features.

Meta hasn’t officially confirmed when this will reach the stable version, but all signs point to this being the future of WhatsApp on Windows. The company says maintaining a single codebase is easier this way, which is true. But it’s also frustrating when the result is a worse experience for users.

So far, if you’re on the stable version, you’re still using the native app. But if you’ve updated to the beta, you’re already in web wrapper territory.