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What is Line app? Line or LINE (as it is stylized) is a highly demanded communication app in Japan and Southeast Asian countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Thai. Unlike traditional worldwide messengers such as Telegram and Whatsapp or, let’s say, corporate-oriented Slack, the LINE app’s developers decided to move the path of Asian messengers and grew it into a so-called super app with many services for everyday life.
Can everyone register an account in this app? Not really. Although the platform supports most countries, in some countries it is possible to create LINE account only with bypassing methods. In today’s article, let’s delve deeper in these registration nuances and some important features of the app.
What is LINE App?
The app has a pretty interesting and even tragic story of development. In 2011, when Japan encountered the consequences of the strong Tohoku earthquake. That time, South Korean employees of the Japanese company Naver who were in the country decided to release an app for emergency communication. Here is how the LINE messenger came to light.
Later, it grew into a platform with various products covering different areas of people’s lives, including entertainment, healthcare, investments, and more. Quite a lot of features in one app for those who create LINE account, right? Over 70% of Japanese people can hardly disagree, since they use the app on a daily basis. It is the combination of services that makes it a sought-after tool similar to KakaoTalk in South Korea and WeChat in China.
To date, its user base consists of 224 million worldwide with over 86 million in its motherland Japan.
So, why do so many people love this app over alternative solutions? And how is it used?
What is LINE App Used for?
Its typical messaging capabilities are similar to those in Telegram and other alternatives, and include exchanging text, photo, video, voice messages as well as make VoiP calls and video conferences.
However, the user’s interface is much more of something between Facebook and Instagram, allowing users to:
- Create a personal page.
- Add friends.
- Join various groups.
- Publish Stories.
- And share favorite posts and videos with subscribers using the Timeline section.
Does the app allow you to create LINE account only for individuals? No, it also provides brands and companies with a chance to create official channels for sharing their updates and promoting goods and services.
As of the calling card of the app, it is the personalized stickers. Various global brands like Louis Vuitton launch their own sets for promotion. While LINE themselves come up with their own characters, which are sold in stores in Japan and are very popular.
But, what makes LINE special compared to other apps, is that if you create LINE account, you get access to its expanded line of services that includes:
- In-built wallet for sending and receiving money, paying for purchases, and even investing in securities and cryptocurrency.
- Shopping platform with many coupons, discount fliers.
- Food delivery feature for food ordering from restaurants and stores.
- News feed for various topics from worldwide events to culture, business news, etc.
- And even more.
To sum up all the above, LINE seems like a pretty useful app, isn’t it? If so, let’s learn some registration tips for LINE and security issues.
Virtual Phone Number for LINE for Identity Protection
Speaking of the LINE’s protection measures, it uses a proprietary end-to-end encryption technology called Letter Sealing. This means that the information that users exchange with each other will not go beyond them. That is why those who create LINE account seem to have nothing to worry about the privacy of their shared data.
However, this is not entirely true because there are some security issues on LINE. So, in 2021, information came to the surface that the Chinese engineers who were engaged in developing AI solutions were given access to LINE’s computers and user data including name, email address, phone number for LINE and LINE ID. Users, of course, received no notification about this, which means that the fact of illegal disclosure of personal user data is obvious.
In addition, it is also known that the company’s servers were hacked. One of the cases was even reported by the hacker himself on his blog. Moreover, from December 2020 to April 2021 more than 70,000 user transaction data were reportedly leaked onto the web.
Why may it be dangerous? The reason is that if some of your data is already leaked to the web, it is enough for hackers to get hold of some of your other information. With that, they will be able to fake your identity to do whatever they want.
Can you hide your real personal data when registering to the app? Yes, you can. For example, it is possible to mask your identity and register an anonymous LINE account by fabricating your phone number with virtual phone numbers from vendors like SMS-man.
How to Create LINE Account without a Phone Number?
SMS-man has been specified in providing virtual phone numbers to pass registration & verification procedures on 1000+ global platforms for over 7 years now.
The best thing about such phone numbers is that they require no passport number or geolocation attachment like regular cellular numbers. So you can buy a number from 156+ supported countries without giving any personal information but email address.
Moreover, you can:
- buy a number for single usage for less than $1.
- rent it for a longer period of up to 3 months.
- or buy them in bulk for promotional or other purposes.
So, here is how you can create LINE account by getting an SMS to a virtual number from SMS-man:
- Register at the platform sms-man.com via email address or through your Google+ account.
- Deposit some funds to your account balance — look for the ‘Top Up’ button in the top right corner.
- To buy a one-time number, enter “Receive SMS”. Choose the required country and then find “LINE” in the service search bar. Click “Buy SMS”.
- Go to the History section below to find the purchased number and apply it for registration of an anonymous LINE account.
- After that, get back to the SMS-man profile and request a confirmation code by clicking the “Receive SMS” button.
- Apply the code to finalize the registration process.