This year WhatsApp has brought some drastic and much-awaited changes on-board. The Facebook-owned company has been known to launch updates for its instant messaging apps in close proximity to each other. 2018 has been an intense year for WhatsApp updates since users got to see some pretty exciting additions to their favourite messaging app. WhatsApp’s simple UI, ads-free environment and freeware usage have helped the company to become the biggest IM app in the world. Here are some of the latest updates which WhatsApp has witnessed on its Beta or Final version.
WhatsApp Group Calling
In an attempt to make WhatsApp as good as Google Duo or Skype in terms of video calling capabilities the WhatsApp developer team has pushed the WhatsApp Group calling feature onto the platform. This functionality allows four users to connect in a conference video call at once, including the person who started the call. The function currently sticks to the beta version only and is expected to soon follow on to the stable builds.
Dismiss as Admin
Previously, if any group admin wanted to demote another admin from its position to a regular group member, he/she had to remove the respective person from the group to do so. Now the process has been simplified to mere tapping a ‘Dismiss as admin’ button which finds its place in the Group Info menu.
Download Deleted Media Files
If users deleted received media files from their folders or gallery, there was no way to retrieve them back by downloading. Now WhatsApp will allow users to download these files again in case they want to recover them back. WhatsApp will do so by keeping the data on its servers for an elongated time.
In-App Facebook and Instagram videos
Facebook and Instagram video links shared over WhatsApp won’t open in a separate window with this update. Users will be able to play the video on the chat screen itself without having to navigate to other applications thanks to this new update.
Suspicious Link Detection
In its beta version 2.18.221, WhatsApp has rolled out a suspicious link detection feature, which checks for unusual characters in a website name and flags it with red colour while the user tries to visit the site. WhatsApp warns the users that the site may be harmful.
Labelling Forward Messages
To curb spam on the messaging platform, WhatsApp has introduced forward labels which will tell the recipients that the sender didn't write the message but instead it was forwarded as it is from another user.
