NEW DELHI, MAY 25
With WhatsApp becoming the daily communication lifeline for almost all smartphone users, the chat platform has dramatically gained significance. The growing importance has given way to scams, fake news and not to forget some newly discovered bugs and text bombs which ruins the experience. As far as privacy is concerned, WhatsApp users can now request for a report of their WhatsApp account information and settings, which can be accessed or ported to another app. This report, however, doesn’t include personal messages.
Also, to prevent the spread of fake news in groups, WhatsApp s reportedly rolling out a “Restrict Group” feature for its iOS, Android and Windows Phone apps. This feature will only allow WhatsApp group admins to send messages in the group. While all group members will be able to see these messages, only admins will be allowed to respond to these texts. Other group members can only read them. While WhatsApp as a simple chat platform has evolved a lot but there is still a long a way to go before it becomes full-proof. Here are five latest WhatsApp bugs and scams you need to be careful about.
*WhatsApp bug that makes blocking feature ineffective
A new bug has been reported in WhatsApp, which is creating problem for its users. The bug allows blocked accounts to send messages to those who have blocked them. The WhatsApp accounts blocked by users are somehow able to send messages to the users who have blocked them. However, users can do one thing in order to avoid messages from their blocked contact. They first have to unblock a blocked contact and then again block them to avoid receiving messages from them. WhatsApp has reportedly rolled out a fix for this.
*Chatwatch spy
There is a new app that can let your WhatsApp friends spy on you even with all the security features in place. The app called Chatwatch, as the name indicates, watches when you are online on the messaging platform and gives others an insight.It has been mentioned that the app, which is available for iOS and Android, uses WhatsApp’s public online and offline status feature to let others know when they check WhatsApp every day and even finds out if the two WhatsApp contacts (given by you) chat with each other or not.
*’Text bomb’
A new text bomb is said to be targeting both Android and Apple iPhone users. In some cases, users have reportedly been forced to restart their smartphones. A seemingly innocuous string of characters with an emoji at the end received as a forward on WhatsApp is claimed to be the culprit here. The said message reads: “This is very interesting!” and has a crying laughing emoji at the end. According to a Reddit user, going by the name DieHoe, the message is crashing WhatsApp of both Android and iPhone users too. “It’s somehow crashing some iPhone’s WhatsApp too,” he writes in the post.
*Notorious ‘hang bomb’
Another forwarded message is said to have ‘hung’ users’ WhatsApp app for few seconds. This message reportedly reads, “If you touch the black point then your WhatsApp will hang.” The message has a black icon, clicking on this is said to freeze the app or make it unresponsive. The message thread is said to be crashing the app due to the blank space between the text and the black dot. The message when converted into HTML reveals that the text consists of RLM (right-to-left mark). This is an invisible formatting character which is used to distinguish between left-to-right text and right-to-left text.
