I've heard bad stuff about Hangouts and the privacy issues it has.

Here is an article on a well known virus software saying to avoid it.

"App to avoid: Google Hangouts

Despite being available for free on both iOS and Android, Google Hangouts is riddled with privacy and security concerns. Though it does encrypt hangout conversations, it doesnt use end-to-end encryption instead, messages are encrypted in transit. This means that they are only encrypted between your device and Googles servers.

Once they are on a server, Google has complete access to them. If ordered to do so, Google can tap into private communication sessions and relay that information to government agencies. And with Googles Transparency Report revealing that the company does indeed receive and often fulfill requests for customer information, this is a very real concern.

Additionally, images sent via Hangouts are shared through public URLs, meaning that virtually anyone (who knows a thing or two about URLs) can view your private images.

This is definitely not the app you should be using to send...sensitive...pics.

How can I stay safe?

We believe everyone has a right to online privacy, but sometimes it takes a bit of pro activeness to protect that right from those who would like unfettered access to it. In an ideal world, everyone would be using super secure messaging apps like Signal or Wickr to communicate. But with the popularity of less secure or privacy-questionable apps such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, sometimes the middle ground is more convenient. If you do choose to use a less secure messaging app, pair it with VPN protection, such as AVG Secure VPN, to keep your information as safe as possible."

Has anyone had any issues with this app regarding privacy or security in these days of data mining, identity theft and fake people hacking or cattfishing them?

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