Viber, or Rakuten Viber, is a cross-platform voice over IP and instant messaging software application owned by Japanese multinational company Rakuten, provided as freeware for the Google Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux platforms.
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Viber was founded in 2010 to solve the problem of long-distance relationships.
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Viber Media was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2010 by Marco and Magazinnik, who are friends from the Israel Defense Forces where they were chief information officers.
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Marco commented that Viber allows instant calling and synchronization with contacts because the ID is the user's cell number, unlike Skype which is modeled after a "buddy list" requiring registration and a password.
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Viber was originally funded by individual investors, described by Marco as "friends and family".
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The sale of Viber earned the Shabtai family some $500 million from their 55.
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In July 2017 the corporate name of Viber Media was changed to Rakuten Viber and a new wordmark logo was introduced.
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On 4 November 2014, Viber scored 1 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Secure Messaging Scorecard".
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Viber said that the encryption protocol had only been audited internally, and promised to commission external audits "in the coming weeks".
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In May 2016, Viber published an overview of their encryption protocol, saying that it is a custom implementation that "uses the same concepts" as the Signal Protocol.
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The Viber messenger is very popular in Greece, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and some Asian markets.
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Viber was growing especially rapidly in urban areas like Moscow and St Petersburg.
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Viber was initially launched for iPhone on 2 December 2010, in direct competition with Skype.
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Viber was originally launched as a VoIP application for voice calling.
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Viber Out became temporarily free in the Philippines to help Typhoon Haiyan victims connect with their loved ones.
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Viber communities are protective of their users' privacy since neither superadmins nor admins can see members' phone numbers.
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In October 2020, Viber launched message statistics to go along with Community insights.
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In November 2018, Viber announced the launch of its message editing feature.
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