WhatsApp’s ‘View Once’ messages is one of the app’s best features when it comes to privacy, allowing users to send private pictures or other media that can only be seen once before they’re virtually self-destructed. The feature also added another layer of privacy earlier this year when screenshots were blocked from ‘View Once’ messages.
However, WhatsApp’s web client can still be opened on laptops and desktops, allowing for various loopholes that may allow these private messages to be screen-grabbed on bigger screens. To fix this, WhatsApp is now removing the ability to send or open ‘View Once’ messages on WhatsApp for Desktop, Windows and MacOS.
A new report by WABetaInfo reveals that the change is already coming to WhatsApp beta users on these platforms and could be implemented on stable versions of the popular communication app soon.
The change will also have the added benefit of acting as a barrier, stopping users from opening what could be personal messages on larger screens, where the media could possibly be visible to other people in the vicinity.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘444470064056909’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);