8 mistakes you should avoid on WhatsApp
As great as WhatsApp is for keeping in touch with people, you shouldn’t get complacent when using the app. Ensuring security is also paramount and you can tweak several settings in the app to achieve this. Avoid these WhatsApp mistakes to improve your experience.
1 Let anyone add you to a group
WhatsApp group chats are a fantastic place to keep up with friends and family members, but it’s important that you know how to stay safe in WhatsApp groups. One of the best ways to do this is to determine who can add you to one.
To determine who can add you to a WhatsApp group, follow these steps:
- Open WhatsApp and go to Settings > Privacy.
- Select Groups table
- Choose My contacts or My contacts except… control who adds you to the group. If you choose the second option, you can check everyone you want to prevent from adding you to the group.
2 Responding to people and numbers you don’t recognize
One of the easiest ways to avoid phishing scams and other cybersecurity threats is to not reply to people you don’t know. I do this not only on WhatsApp but also in my other instant messaging apps. With so many WhatsApp scams, threats and security risks, you need to take extra precautions to keep yourself safe.
Every time I get a message from someone I don’t know, I simply delete the message. If the person persists and hasn’t made it clear who they are, I block them. Unknown numbers cannot contact me because I have prevented them from doing so.
When you receive fraudulent messages on WhatsApp, it is also important that you do not click on any links. These are often malicious and can lead to bigger problems like identity theft.
3 Forwarding scams and unverified messages
You can forward messages within WhatsApp, but you should make sure they are secure before doing so. This is essential for people you don’t know, but it’s also a good idea to verify that someone you know hasn’t sent a legitimate message. You never know if they accidentally clicked on a suspicious link.
I received a few forwarded messages on WhatsApp that were not legitimate, and even though I knew that, someone else may not have been so lucky. For this reason, I recommend taking a step back and verifying that the message is safe. Don’t forward anything from strangers period. If it’s a loved one, check if they wanted to send you a text message.
4 Disclosure of Profile Information
While it’s not the same level of social media as Facebook or Instagram, knowing how to make WhatsApp more secure and private will help keep your identity safe. Few people know that you don’t have to disclose your profile information, but changing your privacy settings in this regard is a great idea.
You can edit each of the following options:
- The visibility of your profile picture.
- Yours O section.
- Who can see when you’re online.
For each one, you can choose whether you want all contacts to see this information or just a small selection. Some settings, such as the visibility of your profile picture, allow you to turn this off for everyone. All these cards can be found in Settings > Privacy section.
When you first sign up for WhatsApp, your device will automatically save all the media you receive. It took me about two weeks to get uncomfortable and try to avoid it. Fortunately, WhatsApp allows you to stop automatic saving of photos and videos.
To verify that everything is working as it should, ask a friend to send you something and see if it saves to your camera roll. This is especially useful when you are part of groups that post a lot of media and memes that can take up your phone storage.
6 Not silencing unknown calls
Although you can ignore unknown calls, I think silencing them on WhatsApp is a much better alternative. By turning this feature on, you will prevent the problem from bothering you all the time, which will immediately limit the number of scams you can potentially fall victim to.
WhatsApp allows you to automatically mute unknown callers to avoid spam callers. The main disadvantage is that you may miss calls from delivery people if you often order goods or groceries online. Apart from silencing unknown callers, there are other things you may want to do to control annoying WhatsApp notifications.
7 Disabling backups
You can’t control what happens to your phone after a certain point. It might break, you might lose it, or you might simply upgrade your device. Backing up your conversations is important, but you also want to make sure everything is encrypted.
By default, your WhatsApp backups are not encrypted. However, you can change this setting by following the steps below.
- Go to Settings > Chats.
- Select Chat backup table
- Tap End-to-end encrypted backup.
- Choose Turn on.
- WhatsApp will then ask you to create a password. Choose Create a password to do it. Alternatively, you can tap Use a 64-digit encryption key instead (I recommend setting a password).
In addition to encrypting chat backups, you can also create encrypted lists, reminders, and files in WhatsApp.
Adjusting privacy settings, improving WhatsApp’s quality-of-life features, and encrypting chat backups mean nothing if a hacker can get into your account. For this reason, I recommend that you add additional verification to your account.
I recommend adding two forms of verification. The first is some kind of biometric identification (ie Touch ID or Face ID).
You should also set a PIN to access your account. It works just like the first phone access. How to do it:
- Go to Privacy > Account and select Two-step verification.
- Press Turn on you will start the process of creating a WhatsApp PIN.
- Enter your PIN code.
Improving WhatsApp is very easy and a few simple tweaks will help you do it. Fine-tuning your privacy is essential, and turning on your PIN is a good idea. However, you should also think about how to limit what information strangers can see about you. Turning off automatic content downloads is ideal for saving space and organizing your camera roll.