The application of instant messaging The most popular is WhatsApp. It has earned it year after year after more than a decade since its debut, during which some of us fell into the trap of paying to use it. It now continues to be updated by adding new functions and features focused on security and privacy.
Is the WhatsApp “private browsing mode”? In fact, there is no magic button to activate it, but this is what is called the best configuration that will protect your account, protecting it from spam and protecting it so that other users cannot access your personal information. We explain how to apply this incognito mode on WhatsApp in a few simple steps.
There’s no such thing as private browsing mode, but these privacy settings can make you invisible
There are many portals that mention a supposed incognito mode of WhatsApp, similar to that of web browsers. What does it consist of? Well, just like in your main browser, this mode This makes you more invisible among your contacts. Of course, unlike browsers like Chrome, Firefox or Edge, there is no button to activate it.
In this case, you must go to the WhatsApp Changes to establish some privacy measures that Meta itself allows in the application. Although there is no function that allows them all, it will only take a few seconds to pull the curtain and from there our profile will be a little more hidden.
To access the settings, open WhatsApp on your Android mobile and tap on the three dots that appear in the upper right corner of the screen. The options will be displayed and among them you will see “Settings”. Tap to enter. Subsequently, you must go to the section “Confidentiality”where we will apply the following changes:
- Last time and time online: By tapping this setting and setting the option to “Nobody”, our last login time and “Online” status will not be visible to other users. It doesn’t matter if they are in our contact list, nobody is nobody.
- Profile picture: The same goes for our profile picture, a vitally important aspect of privacy. Don’t want anyone to see your photo? Set this setting to “Nobody”.
- Information and status: in “Info” we can hide the status of our profile, the one that appears under the name and indicates things like that we are at home, at work or that we cannot speak. Again, for maximum privacy, we will hide it with the same option.
Aside from these privacy restrictions, it doesn’t hurt to turn off the power switch on the double blue control. To do this, you need to tap on “Read Receipts”, but keep in mind that you won’t see if other users have read your messages either.
Chats with an expiration date, so no one can read back what you said
Still looking for a more private “incognito mode”? It’s not a bad idea to use temporary messages, an option that will set an expiration date on our chats. by tapping on “Default duration” We will enable them, with the possibility of marking the deletion date between different periods: 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days.
Likewise, to prevent them from add us to groups -which usually tend to be spam- it is worth checking the “Groups” section where we can choose who has the right to do so. Here there is no option that makes us completely invisible, we will have to leave it in “My contacts”. Or rather, if one of our contacts has become insistent, use the option “My contacts, except …” The list will open where we will select the exception.
Two more options to improve privacy: From the privacy section, go to “Advanced” and enable the options “Protect IP address during calls” and “Disable link previews”. In this way, we will hide our IP address and therefore our location; Regarding the second, by removing the previews, we prevent third parties from knowing our IP address.
Now yes: our WhatsApp will have entered “incognito mode”and we will be almost invisible to other users. The privacy and security of the most popular messaging app includes various options that, fortunately, we can take advantage of to make our account more private and secure.
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