BERLIN: Earlier this year, WhatsApp rolled out a feature that lets you see what's at the other end of the link that someone just messaged you without having to switch to your browser.
The latest addition to Meta's messenger app shows you small preview images of websites or content in your chat whenever someone sends you a link, so you don't need to tap on it and wait for the browser to open.
Link previews are also available to users of the Signal app. The problem for WhatsApp users, however, is that Meta's version of this feature shares your IP address, potentially exposing you to tracking and a gap in the end-to-end encryption of chat on WhatsApp.
Using the IP address, content providers can roughly determine your location and track your browsing activity across the web. Industry experts fear it could also leave some users open to targeted attacks from hackers.
If you don't want link previews, you can turn them off in WhatsApp by navigating to Settings/Privacy/Advanced and enabling the "Disable link preview" option.
If protecting your IP address is important to you, then you should also do so for WhatsApp calls. Users who activate "Protect IP address in calls" under Settings/Privacy/Advanced will no longer transmit their address to the respective contact during calls, as calls are then routed via WhatsApp servers. Call quality may, however, deteriorate. WhatsApp group calls always run via the provider's servers.
Signal has a similar link preview feature and the privacy-oriented messenger also allows users to switch them on or off at any time under Settings/Chats.
However, in Signal, protection against tracking is already guaranteed with link tracking on, so turning it off is only an option for users who don't like the preview feature itself.
Signal's technical implementation of link previews means that developers cannot see which links users are sending each other. Furthermore, content providers behind the links do not receive users' IP addresses. It is therefore impossible for third parties to track users across the web based on link previews in Signal.
For calls where users do not want their IP address to be revealed, Signal also offers the option of routing all calls via Signal's servers. To activate this, navigate in the settings to Privacy/Advanced Settings/Always relay calls and toggle the slider. – dpa
