Since the test version of WhatsApp Web was launched in 2015, millions of users of the messaging app owned by Facebook (Meta) have opted for the convenience of launching it in the browser. However, it can have counterproductive aspects for the user, such as appearing permanently connected since the account session remains open, or giving the sensation —sometimes false— of having read a message if we had a certain conversation open in the background. All this can be fixed with a trick in the form of an extension for Google Chrome.
WAincognito is the name of the extension for the Google browser that we are talking about on this occasion. With a small weight of just 200 KB, it allows us to become practically invisible in WhatsApp Web in two ways: disabling message read receipts and online status updates.
WAincognito extension new features
How WAincognito works is simple. After its installation and subsequent restart of Chrome, it will add a new menu to any active WhatsApp Web session. In this new branch of options will appear some of the new features at our disposal (for now it will only be shown in English).
The first of them allows reading receipts to be completely disabled , meaning that, although we have read the message, the receiver does not receive the double blue check . They can be completely deactivated, something that would mean that, only when returning to the mobile version, the data would be synchronized with the server and those read confirmation icons would appear. On the other hand, it also gives the option of delaying these confirmations in intervals from 5 seconds onwards, not showing as read at the real time, but at a time more in line with our interests.
New options that appear in WhatsApp Web with the extension.
The second new feature added is the ability to hide your online status from other contacts. In this way, your privacy in WhatsApp is more similar to the options that we have already had on smartphones for some time. As much as you have a browser tab with WhatsApp Web activated, the rest of your contacts will not know that you are online.
The possibilities of the addition do not end there. As summarized by its author in the functions sheet, it also allows you to delete messages to restore them later and the options to hide your status also apply to both conversation groups and statuses (the equivalent of Instagram and Facebook Stories). In addition to having tested all the features of this trick ourselves, the extension already has more than 60,000 downloads , according to data from the official Google repository. Satisfaction can also be appreciated if we take into account that it currently accumulates a score of 4 stars out of 5 in valuation.
How to hide your status and read receipts
To make use of this trick, we are going to summarize it in simple steps:
Extension tab in the Chrome Web Store.
- Download the WAIncognito extension from the Chrome Web Store.
- Open a new tab with WhatsApp Web (web.whatsapp.com).
- On our mobile device, select the linked devices option and add a new one.
- Scan the QR code to enter our WhatsApp account.
- Activate incognito mode on the spy icon in the upper left.
- WhatsApp Web will open with the privacy options that we have configured.