According to the 2023 third-party app feature review, gbwhatsapp has more than 3,500 custom emojis (motion stickers) built into its v19.50 version, about 94% more than the 1,800 official WhatsApp standard Unicode emoji library. However, compatibility tests indicated that 28% of GbWhatsapp-specific emoticons (such as “3D fireworks” and “fluorescent text”) did not display on unmodified clients, and the receiver was blanked out 65% of the time, resulting in a 12% increase in user misreading. For example, for Indian market research company App Annie, in 2022 gbwhatsapp users caused 41% of communication discombobulation via emoji incompatibility issues, higher than Telegram at 19%, and Signal at 8%.
Technically, gbwhatsapp goes beyond Unicode 14.0-standard adjustable expression list by way of APK file modification but with expression transmission over a protocol that still remains on HTTP/1.1 (the original application now switched to HTTP/3). As a result, the load time of a single message with more than 5 custom emoticons is increased to 1.8 seconds (0.6 seconds for the official app), and the traffic usage is increased by 23%. Testimony evidence from cybersecurity firm Kaspersky showed that gbwhatsapp’s “super memes” feature (sending 50 emojis each time) triggered a system memory leak 17% of the time, and the rate of app-crash on low-end devices (e.g., 3GB RAM phones) was as high as 33%.
From the perspective of compliance risk, copyright issues of gbwhatsapp’s unauthorized expression assets are present. In 2023, Meta legal group sued gbwhatsapp in 12 countries of the world claiming that gbwhatsapp used over 400 Disney, Marvel and other owners’ IP images in an unlawful way, for an estimated value of over $2 million compensation. Traditional examples include a Filipino user flagged and held accountable by Disney’s monitoring system for sending gbwhatsapp’s pre-installed “Spider-Man motion stickers” and eventually settled up for $1,500.
Market feedback shows that gbwhatsapp’s emoji extension features are attractive to young user bases. Sensor Tower data show that in the second quarter of 2023, user downloads aged 18-24 years were 55% higher than in the corresponding period last year, but the active account with more than 100 daily uses of non-standard emojis was suspended with a probability of 29%, mainly because Meta’s risk control system flagged high-frequency non-standard emojis as “spam.”. As an example, the profile of one Brazilian Internet celebrity, who shared 800 gbwhatsapp exclusive emojis daily as advertisement for goods, was banned outrightly forever within 72 hours, and lost immediately almost $12,000 in revenue from advertisements.
A security vulnerability was exposed in gbwhatsapp’s emoji storage module by a code audit. Its dynamic map file (avg. 500KB) was not SHA-256 validated and, as a result, the 2022 hacker attack using malicious GIF embed code, approximately 50,000 devices were infected with spyware. The German security authority AV-Test has confirmed that when users of gbwhatsapp click on the “flashing expression” from a third source, the possibility of information leakage regarding the device is 73% greater than that of the official client, and the repair cycle is as long as 45 days (7 days for the official client).
In spite of having an “emoji cloud download” option (in real-time sync for 600/month), servers of gbwhatsapp are not ISO 27001 accredited, and its highest failure in emoji library syncing on a global scale in August 2023 was at an all-time high of 39%. For example, Indonesian users complained about how after a v20.10 upgrade, the custom emoji 52% would not display upon download and startup time took up to 8 seconds (2 seconds if officially released).
In short, although gbwhatsapp has an advantage in the number of emojis, its technical defects, legal risk and compatibility problems significantly damage the user experience. If the emoji function needs to be used frequently, It is better to preferentially choose an officially certified Business solution (such as WhatsApp Business API) to ensure communication security and stability.