14 DAY TRIAL // Word has it that Snapchat could soon launch an official client for Windows Phone, but in the meantime, those who are using a device powered by Microsoft's very own smartphone platform are really having a hard time connecting to this service.
Last month, Snapchat started banning users running third-party apps and not the official client, in an attempt to boost security and make sure that no other hacks occur.
Snapchat got hacked earlier this year as part of what was called "the Snappening," a major breach which led to approximately 100,000 photos and videos sent by users to be published online on 4chan.
At that point, Snapchat claimed that a third-party client was at fault for the security breach, so starting banning users who still run these apps was the only way to prevent similar cases in the future.
The service first started warning users to switch to the official clients in November, but we're now receiving reports that many are getting banned for still running third-party apps on various platforms.
Windows Phone users also getting banned
Even though it's somewhat understandable that Snapchat wants to boost the security level of its service by banning users who turn to third-party clients, on Windows Phone the whole case is a lot more complicated.
First and foremost, there's no official Snapchat app, so those who aren't allowed to use a third-party app have basically no other option to access the service. In other words, if they don't use a third-party app, they don't use Snapchat at all, so it's a bit tricky if the company doesn't want to lose users at all.
The first bans occurred in early December and some said that they got their accounts locked even if they were heavy users, which kind of raises some questions related to Snapchat's strategy.
Others, however, claim that logging into Snapchat with the official iOS or Android client every once in a while prevents your account from getting backed even if you're using a third-party app on a regular basis, but we don't have an official confirmation that this solution works right now.
At this point, 6snap is the most popular Snapchat client on Windows Phone, and it has no less than 95,000 ratings and an overall score of four out of five stars. In case you get your account locked when using this app, keep in mind that it isn't 6snap's fault, so you don't really have to blame the app's developer for that.
