WhatsApp, Signal roll out new privacy features

Messaging apps unveil a host of features to provide a comfortable experience for users. From WhatsApp’s “My Contacts Except” to report its increased video group call limit, users have an array of features to look forward to.

WhatsApp is ready to roll out its latest “My contacts except” feature. The new desktop version update will allow users to hide their “last seen” and profile photos from a selected set of contacts. This feature is the latest of WhatsApp updates to improve user privacy features.

According to a blog post by wabetainfo, it is now possible to select who can see user information such as About, Profile picture and Last visited. According to the report, the feature will be released on both the app and desktop versions. The messaging platform will include functionality on iOS beta and Android beta soon, however, the official release date is not yet known.

On similar lines, another leading messaging app platform, Signal, has extended the participant limit for a group video call.

“Signal released end-to-end encrypted group calls a year ago, and since then we have gone from supporting 5 participants to 40. There is no standard software that would allow us to support. load calls of this size. while ensuring that all communication is end-to-end encrypted, we have therefore created our own open source signal calling service to do the job, ”the company said on its official blog.

Video and audio are typically transferred through three types of architecture: selective transfer, full mesh, and server mixing. While Server Mixing which supports a large number of participants is not end-to-end encrypted, in contrast, Full Mesh only works on smaller calls.

Signal was able to secure the multimedia flow of a large number of participants thanks to its open source unit – Selective Forwarding Unit. According to the company, the participants send their media to the server and the server “pushes” them to the recipients without modifying or viewing them. The new feature is compatible with end-to-end encryption, according to the company’s publication. India On 24