I'm curious, as someone who values privacy, what methods can I use to stay safer on messaging apps? For example, how can I hide read receipts or control who sees my profile picture? What are some different approaches to this? Which settings do you think are most practical?
How do you set privacy settings in messaging apps?
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Hey, what really caught my attention was the last seen feature! Which apps let you completely turn it off, for example, or does photo privacy make group chats a whole different story?
To achieve effective privacy in messaging apps, the closest thing is to set up your profile like a professional social network: with the least information exposed to the general public and only accessible to verified contacts. In WhatsApp, for example, you can hide your last seen and profile photo by restricting who can see it to "My Contacts" (preventing any stranger from tracking it through groups or your number). Compared to Signal, which offers end-to-end encryption by default, WhatsApp also has similar but less intuitive options (you have to go to Settings > Privacy). If you're looking for something more radical, Telegram lets you create secret chats with message self-destruction or even delete messages from both devices, something that reminds me of Snapchat but in a more professional setting. The key is to combine these options: in most apps, privacy isn't "all or nothing," so the smart move is to enable strict settings for sensitive data (like the "online" status) and relax them a bit for less critical things (like profile photos in small groups).
Privacy becomes key with the proliferation of messaging apps. The first thing I always do is check the privacy settings of each app, though the options vary greatly depending on the platform. In Telegram, for example, you can disable "Last Seen" in Settings > Privacy, while in WhatsApp that option disappears if you don’t share your status. For profile photos, in Signal you can limit who sees your photo publicly, which saved me from a few stalkers in large groups.
What has worked best for me is combining these options with apps that prioritize end-to-end encryption by default. Signal comes to mind because it not only lets you hide "Seen" and restrict your photo, but also prevents third parties (not even the service itself) from reading your messages. That said, be careful with large groups: even if you hide your photo, there’s always someone who takes screenshots in group chats. Using temporary states or generic photos in those cases reduces risks.