I have no technical expertise, but I do believe the issue lies in UDP vs TCP. I have faced the same issue on Signal too, and even video streaming (including Youtube). Overall, the best option for WhatsApp at the moment is to use a VPN. TOR is working on supporting UDP so we will have a great solution soon.
Wow, great to have someone working on UDP here, welcome!
Oh, I learned something new. This explains why WhatsApp calls for example couldn’t work over Orbot.
There are many use cases and benefits:
If both contacts is in a strict censorship country
If one contact is in a free country, and the other in a strict censorship country
Even if both contacts is in an uncensored country. Or only one of them is on Tor. There are still a number of advantages
I agree that it won’t protect from WhatsApp from already knowing so much about you. Also many contacts of privacy conscious individuals refuses to use anything other than WhatsApp (or iMessage depending where you are). But Tor may still help to protect from an unfriendly contact or stalker who knows your phone number. Or you or your contact’s ISP or untrusted network from performing MitM attack or surveillance.
E.g. a researcher demonstrated how coarse location can be tracked from Signal calls
Although I heard like Signal, WhatsApp is supporting opt-in relay servers soon
But this still doesn’t solve the censorship problem. And lets just say GFW is extremely sophisticated at blocking stuffs and Tor is easier to setup and better than most at this.
If Orbot is used as a VPN with kill switch. It’s not convenient to be constantly switching the network on and off just to make or receive WhatsApp calls, and that will lead to many missed calls. Also disabling kill switch to conditionally select apps will risk traffic leakage (by untrusted apps) or human error.
And I think networking effect is at stake. If one side finds it too inconvenient or impossible to use, then the other will simply give up because there are nobody to contact with. This gradually creates a domino effect.
In a nutshell, Tor supporting UDP will bring immense benefit not just for WhatsApp or Signal but all other apps using it.
Thanks @anon53360594 and other developers for listening and your contribution.
I hope Tor project succeeds in making more apps and websites (like banking) compatible with it.
Thanks for the testing, beth. It definitely has been a moving target with WhatsApp and TCP support, and whether it works over Orbot or not. Signal seemed to work better in the past, but not sure now.
Just as a side comment, voice messaging works great over both WhatsApp and Signal, since those are just sent as files essentially, and are not streaming.
Wow, great to have someone working on UDP here, welcome!