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.
WhatsApp has been stewing in a pot of bad PR for the past few years but it seems that things have been heating up more recently. Despite that, the messaging service still enjoys millions of users that seem to be more at risk each day as new vulnerabilities and even corporate policies keep popping up. The latest may be one of the most worrisome because it could cause any user to lose access to their account forever even with all the security measures properly in place.
Despite the many privacy concerns WhatsApp has recently been involved in courtesy of parent company Facebook, there are still many users that remain heavily invested in the messaging service. To be fair, WhatsApp does currently have strong privacy safeguards, at least for now, and it is expanding its features to support a multi-device world. Ironically, those two goals don't always align, as seen in the case of transferring between Android phones and iPhones, something that might finally become easier once this chat history migration feature becomes available.
WhatsApp today announced that it's bringing one-to-one calls to its desktop app. Calling will be available both for voice and video and they'll be end-to-end encrypted as well. While these calls have been a centerpiece in the WhatsApp mobile app for a long time, the company says that it's bringing calling to the desktop app to help support the increase in calls that have come with the pandemic.