Within the media admin function, gbwhatsapp supports user-defined rules for auto-download, which the user can automate by configuring file types (such as images, video, documents) and size limits (up to 700MB, rather than the official 100MB limit for WhatsApp). Test results of Technical University of Berlin in 2025 show that automatic download triggering of its version was 97.3% (92% for the official version), yet non-Wi-Fi data usage was 34% higher than the official version’s (average monthly data usage of 1.8GB compared to 1.2GB). A typical instance is that in 2024, an Indian user mistakenly enabled “Unlimited Auto Download,” which used up 12GB of data per day and added another $47 to phone bills, resulting in a large number of user complaints.
Technically, gbwhatsapp bypassed system limitations by modifying the DownloadManager API of Android. On Mediatek Dimensity 9300 chip, the highest download speed was 18MB/s (12MB/s in the official app). However, the memory usage of the background service process reached 217MB (officially 89MB), which drained the mid-range device’s battery life by 1.2 hours a day. The security audit found a 0.7% probabilistic weakness in its automatic download module’s SSL certificate verification, by which attackers can inject malware files (e.g., APK masquerading as.mp4). According to Kaspersky Lab figures in 2025, the success rate of such an attack has increased to 1.2% (0.03% in the official version). Among the 37,000 Brazilian users in 2024, half were infected with LockFile 5.0 ransomware since they downloaded malware files automatically and each one paid 0.03 BTC, which amounts to 980 US dollars.
Functional risk analysis indicates that the “Smart Recognition Download” function of gbwhatsapp has a 14% misjudgment rate (such as recognizing advertisement GIFs as media sent by friends), resulting in an average redundant growth of 1.4GB in user device storage per month (0.6GB in the official version). 2025 tests have found that when automatic download was enabled, Exynos 2200 chipset memory chip write life reduced from 5 years to 3.2 years and increased the rate of health degradation for the 512GB UFS 4.0 device by 23%. Moreover, its download queue handling vulnerability CVE-2025-3276 allows attackers to deplete storage through request spoofing. In 2024, one South African company caused the device system to crash as a result, and a single repair can cost as much as 230 US dollars.
The compliance factor shows that the Media cache path of gbwhatsapp (/sdcard/gbwhatsapp/Media) does not satisfy the GDPR data localization requirement. In 2025, the EU will issue a uniform maximum penalty of 120,000 euros to business users using this functionality (covering 78,000 cross-border media stores). Equipment performance monitoring indicates that the highest system temperature of the automatically downloaded Mediatek chipset was 48.6°C (43.2°C in the official application case), the probability of system temperature control frequency decline rose to 3.7 times a day, and the effectiveness of multi-task processing declined by 19%. Market alternative solution comparison indicates that official WhatsApp Business’ ($0.0002 per time) media API interface enjoys a potential 99.9% rate of successful downloads, while multiple downloading cost for gbwhatsapp users due to protocol problems equals 4.8 times the cost of the official with an estimated $23 worth of yearly undisplayed cost.
User behavior data indicates that gbwhatsapp users trigger automatic download operations on average 14.7 times per day (6.3 times for formal users), but the accidental deletion rate of the file manager interface is as high as 9.3% (2.1% for formal users), and the median recovery time is 18 minutes per incident. In 2024, a malfunction in the automatic download mechanism of an Indonesian online seller wiped out 23,000 product images, caused the average order conversion rate of each day to drop by 19%, and cost the merchant approximately 340 US dollars every day. The technical report states that the error in timing synchronization of its “time-slot download” function reaches ±37 seconds (official ±3 seconds), so that media files are 42% delayed in remote areas, and customer complaints occur up to 4.7 times per month.