The company continues to improve its privacy features for its users, starting with the ability to hide a user’s online status from a stranger in December. Now, users can hide last seen qualities and leave a group chat silently.
Let’s begin with the first new feature: the ability to select which of their contacts can see their status. Whatsapp answered last December’s update where the online group of its users was by default hidden from strangers, but all their contacts could see their online status.
A group chat can be exited without an awkward notification. At present, like the Messenger app under Meta, if someone leaves the group chat, everyone in the group gets notified. A tense atmosphere is created in the group, as they will receive private messages describing why this user left. The new update will only notify admins if a user rejects a group chat.
According to Whatsapp, the new features are expected to roll out this month. Additionally, WhatsApp is working on preventing users from taking screenshots of ‘view once’ messages. View Once statements differ from Disappearing Messages (also present in Messenger), where the message will disappear after a specific period.
In contrast, View Once messages will disappear once they have been seen by the recipient, much like Snapchat images and videos. Screenshots will no longer be able to be captured and shared with other people, preventing the leak of sensitive information.
