WhatsApp It is the most popular instant messaging application on the planet. Almost everyone uses it and everyone knows it. Year after year, its developers implement new and practical functions of all kinds, some of them very focused on privacy. In this post we are going to analyze one of them that will surely interest you: how to be online on WhatsApp without being seen.
The possibility that WhatsApp now offers us is to be able to selectively hide whether we are online or not. That is, this information is only visible to the users we ourselves decide.
From the very beginning, any WhatsApp user could check whether another user was connected to the application or not. You just had to click on the contact name and check if it appeared the "online" message. In this way, we could know that she was aware of receiving our messages and the question could be raised as to why she does not read us or answer us.
Logically, this was not to the taste of those users who were most jealous of their privacy. Thus, in 2021 the first restriction arrived: eThe “online” sign would only be visible to those users with whom you had already interacted before.. This made it possible to block most apps designed to "spy" on other people's messages on WhatsApp. A notable improvement, although insufficient. But that is one of the things that have been corrected in the latest versions. We explain it below:
How to decide who we want to know that we are online on WhatsApp
Currently, WhatsApp allows us to make the decision of which users can see the "online" message that indicates when we are connected or not. It is something that we can manage very easily. through the application's privacy settings.
To start this function, you must execute the following steps:
- First of all, we open WhatsApp and access the settings menu.
- Then we go to the option Account.
- From there we go to Privacy.
- Next, we access «Last Time and Online». It is in this option where we will be able to determine which users can know these two pieces of information: if we are online and when was the last time we were connected. The Options are:
- All.
- My contacts.
- My contacts except ...
- No one.
If we select "Everything", both the time of our last connection and the notice that we are online will be visible to everyone. On the other hand, if we choose to choose "Nobody", no user will be able to see either the time of the last connection or the indication that we are connected.
There are two intermediate options. One of them is «My contacts», with which we select all our contacts so that they can see if we are connected and the last connection time. The other is that of "My contacts, except...". With this option we can restrict this information to certain users, even if they appear on our contact list.
All of these options also have a limit: if you want to limit who can see that we are connected, it will also be necessary to limit who can see our last connection time. Both things are linked. In addition, we must know that when we apply these restrictions, preventing all or some users from knowing that we are online, we will not be able to obtain this information from them either.
Other WhatsApp privacy options
In addition to knowing what to do to be online on WhatsApp without being seen, there are many other options available on WhatsApp with which you can preserve shows privacy. Here are some of the most interesting:
Disable the double blue check
As all WhatsApp users know, the double check It was introduced as an indication that the message we have sent has reached its recipient. Besides, if the double check appears marked in blue, we will know that not only has it arrived, but also that it has been read.
But what if we don't want that to be known? Many times that blue mark "obliges" us to respond shortly, since otherwise it could be interpreted in a negative way. To eliminate that pressure, it is best to disable that double tick. This is done from the Settings menu, going to the Privacy section and deactivating the "Read receipts" button.
Hide statuses
It is also possible to hide the statuses (both the presentation texts and the stories that appear in our profile) from prying eyes. To do this you have to follow the route of Settings-Account-Privacy. Then, so that it is not read our profile text, the one that by default says "Hi! I am using WhatsApp!", we choose the option Info and we hide the message.
To hide the status, we use the same route, but instead of Info we select State privacy. There we will be able to choose who we want to share our statuses with: There are three possibilities: "My contacts", "My contacts except..." and "Share with".
Temporary messages and ephemeral photos
A good way to not leave a trace and take care of our privacy is to communicate with messages that expire. In any WhatsApp conversation, you have to go to the top bar and select «Temporary messages», choosing the automatic deletion option for these messages that best suits what we want.
The same can be applied to the photos, as long as we capture them from the WhatsApp app: the image is captured and, before sending it, click on the configuration button so that the image is displayed only once.
Messages that "self-destruct" and photos that disappear after viewing them... They seem like movie resources, but they are real and very useful.
Use airplane mode
Finally, a method that will help us hide completely. In this case we are not going to use the WhatsApp privacy options, but rather the settings of our mobile device. He airplane mode, which we all know and know how to activate, will allow us to be online on WhatsApp, read messages and even respond to them without anyone knowing what we are doing. A good resource, without a doubt.