WhatsApp dark mode is nearly here, but what else is coming to the messaging app? – TechRadar, TechRadar

In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook had broken up a team responsible for finding ways to work advertisements into conversations – a move that would have been met with widespread annoyance.

That doesn’t mean WhatsApp will remain entirely ad-free, thoughl Facebook is still planning to plug ads into the app’s Status feature. This works much like Instagram Stories, with posts that are only visible for a short time, but occupy your whole screen. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

If Facebook can’t advertise through WhatsApp, it can always earn a crust by taking a cut of goods sold by third-party retailers. In November 2020, the app

gained a virtual catalog feature , which lets small retailers display their wares for potential customers to browse. Shoppers can choose what they’d like to buy, then contact the merchant to complete the purchase.

This is a handy feature that can help put small retailers in contact with millions of potential customers, but it’s still necessary for them to leave the app to actually hand over their money.

A future update could follow the example of Instagram, letting companies add a ‘checkout’ option to posts that allows them to make a purchase directly. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Self-destructing messages

Self -destructing messages

are another feature that’s been in the works a long time, and although we originally thought it might appear at the same time as dark mode, there’s no evidence of it in beta yet, so we now expect it’ll be a little longer.

It is that you’ll be able to send messages that are deleted automatically after a certain period of time (an hour, a day, a week, a month or a year). This will be a handy privacy feature, allowing you to send sensitive sensitive information to your contacts and know that it won’t be stored on their phone indefinitely, ready to be discovered if their handset is borrowed or stolen.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

An in-app browser Another

feature discovered in a WhatsApp beta APK, this is exactly what it sounds like: a web browser that allows you to open links without leaving the messaging app, much like those already used by Twitter and Facebook. It would probably be based on Chrome, and early signs suggest it would warn you if you happen to tap a link to a potentially harmful site.

A handy way to protect you from potential scams shared by malicious parties, or just friends who did not know better.

Boomerang videos Another feature that Facebook could copy across from Instagram, boomerang videos would allow you to share short, infinitely looping clips with your contacts. They won’t have a profound effect on the way you communicate, but if the reception to Google’s recently launched Emoji Kitchen is anything to go by, people love having a new toy that they and their friends can play with. We’d certainly like to give it a try, and some of Instagram’s image-optimizing filters would be a nice addition to WhatsApp as well. Maybe later …

Find out how to enable dark mode for Chrome

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