For starters, anyone can see that you’re online, whether you’re in your contacts or not, even though the app started restricting that aspect last year, it’s still not up to the user. Now that we’ve learned through WaBetaInfo, we’ll finally be able to decide on the privacy options that we can see online that we can see.

The opportunity we should have had from the beginning

All the messaging apps that can show anyone online allow users to hide their status. It’s not a new thing, it already existed in the first messaging apps, such as MSN Messenger. WhatsApp, however, has not been recognized in its 13-year history.

Although WhatsApp allows us to control who can see our last connection time, the current connection status (i.e. whether or not you are connected) is public. This has been the basis of WhatsApp spy apps as they are constantly asking to create a map of a person’s status using the app. This big privacy issue seems to be close to finally being solved.

We learned in late 2021 that WhatsApp had begun to limit who could see the status of the network, "making it difficult for people you don't know and haven't chatted with to see your last time and status on the network." Now the app is working on a privacy setup so you can choose who sees your connection.

The setting is not yet active for users and will share the focus with the last connection time setting. It will also have only two settings: All or "Same as last connection time." This way, you can choose to see the whole world, your contacts, the whole world except for a few contacts or no one, but in a synchronized way with the time of the last connection.

WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging service in existence and the company does not stop introducing new improvements to the app. One of the last ones being tested, according to WaBetaInfo, is the ability to hide when we are online, among other things.

Lots of news along the way

Some iOS users already have access to the latest WhatsApp beta. This same beta has arrived on Android, but for now, with other settings that do not include the ability to hide our status within the app, but with some options to delete a sent message.

Until now, the set limit was 7 minutes, but now we can delete the messages we sent two days later. A very noticeable change, with which we can regret having extended a message much longer, but which will continue to be reflected in the chat.

The option to delete messages will come much earlier than the option to hide "Online", as this change will include different options that we can change from the app settings, which WhatsApp situations or other people see when typing a number that is not in the device's address book.
As we can see, they are small changes that can be very useful and improve the user experience, but they take time and it is unknown when they will be available in the stable version of the application.

For example, the reactions that have been available for weeks have been talked about for years, although this time it is expected that this news will not be delayed.

Get the latest Instagram connection from Android

One of the increasingly sought-after privacy options on social media and messaging services is the reference to being able to hide when we’re active in the app. In fact, we can often receive messages or other interactions that we can’t respond to at the moment, and appearing online can be conflicting with other people. That’s why having that opportunity to hide is always welcome, whether it’s turned on or not.

Just as we can hide our latest connection on WhatsApp as well as Telegram, Instagram allows us to hide it as much as possible. The popular social network developed by Meta offers an integrated messaging service that tells our friends when we last connected. Fortunately, disabling this option is very easy.