WhatsApp has rolled out a new feature that is commonly found on alternative privacy-centric messaging apps: disappearing videos and photos. The feature offers users more control over the media they share with others, enabling them to send potentially sensitive content to others without it remaining in the chat indefinitely.
Just because your WhatsApp messages may be end-to-end encrypted, doesn't mean Facebook won't one day potentially be able to use the contents for advertising. While one of the big assumptions about encryption has been that the messaging platforms themselves aren't privy to what you're discussing with your contacts, a new push to develop homomorphic encryption techniques could change the stakes.
WhatsApp expanded its Group Call system beyond a one-time-join rule to allow joining at a later time. Joinable calls, as they're called, "reduce the burden of answering a group call as it starts," according to a WhatsApp representative commenting on the release. It also "brings the spontaneity and ease of in-person conversations to group calling on WhatsApp."
WhatsApp has introduced a key privacy feature that'll help prevent unwanted snooping in your old chat logs -- but you can only access it if you're a beta user on Android. With the latest beta update, WhatsApp now offers encrypted cloud backups, meaning that anyone who acquires your stored chat logs won't be able to read them.
Facebook has improved WhatsApp multi-device support and it is making it available to some users as a limited public beta test. With this beta, WhatsApp users can finally access their chats across multiple devices other than their smartphone -- and these devices won't be dependent on your phone to continue using the messaging service.
Android users of the popular chat app WhatsApp have a couple of updates to look forward to. The updates are currently in beta and have been submitted to the Google Play Beta Program. The app moves to version 2.21.14.6 in the first update submitted earlier this month.
Snapchat may have popularized the idea of self-destructing social media posts, but others have quickly caught on to make it a must-have on any messaging platform. Late last year, WhatsApp rolled out its "Disappearing Messages" that self-destruct after a given period. Unfortunately, some users might still find that too long, especially for potentially incriminating photos and videos. It seems that WhatsApp is all about ready to roll out a stricter multimedia version of that self-destructing system that you can view once and only once before it's gone forever.
There are different systems these days for securing accounts beyond fragile and weak passwords. While authenticator apps are often the recommended method, others also use your phone number as a sort of a second authentication factor. That's especially true for services that use your phone number as your account number anyway, like WhatsApp. It seems that Facebook's messaging service is going to use that number to implement another layer of security, making a flash call to verify the number that you gave for login is a valid one.
It seems that several big, new features are on the way to WhatsApp. First and foremost, it looks like WhatsApp is nearly ready to move multi-device support into testing. While that's big enough news on its own, we're also learning today that WhatsApp will expand disappearing messages functionality in addition to launching a new feature called "View Once" that makes the existence of photos and videos very temporary.
WhatsApp's new privacy policy rollout has been messy and confusing, and it doesn't look like that'll change any time soon. The new policy finally rolled out on May 15 -- after Facebook had said that while it wouldn't delete accounts that didn't accept the new policy, those accounts would eventually lose access to some features. Now, only a couple of weeks later, the company has changed its mind.
One of the more popular messaging apps for smartphone users on the market right now is WhatsApp. The app is widely used, and as people upgrade smartphones every few years, many have been asking for a way to move their chat histories to a new device. As it stands now, you can use the same WhatsApp account on a new device on the same platform, but chat histories aren't carried over for different platforms.
There is no stopping WhatsApp's, really Facebook's, changes to its privacy policy despite the immense backlash from its own users as well as privacy advocates. The bottom line remains that if you want to keep using WhatsApp, you'll have to agree to share some of your data with Facebook, despite WhatsApp bragging about its privacy-focused operations. You won't, however, immediately lose access to your account after the May 15th deadline if you don't agree to that policy but you will slowly see yourself pushed out of the service until you do.