Many safety features have been provided on WhatsApp, but one of its features is such that your important information can be passed on to the other person. Actually, WhatsApp is used to send photos, text and links etc. When you share a link with someone, WhatsApp activates a short preview of it so that you can know what the link is about. This feature sends your important information to the other person.
What information is conveyed by the link preview?
Actually, when you insert a link in the message box, WhatsApp creates a ‘get request’ to the website containing that link. With its help, the app loads other things along with the preview image. Now its problem is that the IP address of the person sending the message is also transmitted along with it. That means when you send a link to someone in a message, your IP address also goes along with it.
What problem can IP address cause?
When your IP address is transmitted in the message, along with it the information about which version of WhatsApp you are using and which operating system you have is also transmitted. This is problematic because your device can be tracked by IP address. Hackers can also take advantage of this and try targeted attacks through open ports or DDoS. Similarly, from the version number it can be known which security flaws have been found in it and by taking advantage of them, hacking attempts can also be made.
How to avoid this?
Link preview is enabled by default on WhatsApp. Therefore you will have to disable it manually. For this, go to the settings of the app and go to the privacy section and tap on Advanced. Here you will find the setting to disable link preview. If you disable it, the preview of any link will not be visible and only the URL and link text will be visible in the message.
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Keep these things in mind before buying a new phone, if you forget then your money can go waste.
