WhatsApp Archives - Chipp.in Tech News and Reviews

WhatsApp Premium? New Leak Reveals Meta’s Plan to Launch Ad-Free Subscriptions

Posted on January 26, 2026January 26, 2026 by Martin Brinkmann

Ever since its inception, the world’s most popular messaging app has retained the status of an ad-free, then almost ad-free experience, but that “free” ride is officially reaching a fork in the road. WhatsApp is reportedly preparing to launch a paid membership tier this year starting with users in Europe to allow them to bypass the advertisements currently rolling out across the platform.

As Meta looks to monetize the “Updates” tab, this new ad-free subscription marks the first time in history that users may have to pay to keep their messaging experience clean.

This move is not happening in a vacuum. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, is following the exact strategy that Meta deployed for Facebook and Instagram across Europe. Under the model, users are asked to make the following choice: either allow Meta to track their activity for personalized advertisement or pay a monthly fee to keep the feed clean.

While Meta is copying the base strategy directly from Facebook and Instagram, WhatsApp’s personal chats remain ad-free, at least for now. This means that users pay Meta to keep the Status and Channels sections ad-free and stop creating an advertising profile of users who pay the premium.

What happens if you don’t pay?

Personal chats remain free of advertisement, at least for now. This is something that Meta has shied away from as it would like drive users towards competitors like Signal or Telegram.

Users who do not subscribe will continue to see sponsored content in the “Updates” tab.

The Verdict: Is WhatsApp Premium Worth It?

Pros	Cons
Clean Interface: Removes intrusive banners and sponsored posts from the Status and Channels tabs.	New Monthly Expense: Adds to “subscription fatigue” for an app that has been free for over a decade.
Data Privacy: Meta may not create a profile for advertising, since there are not any ads to show.	Partial Solution: Early reports suggest ads remain in “Channels” you don’t follow, so it may not be 100% ad-free.
Early Access: Potential for premium-only features, such as larger file sharing or advanced chat organization.	Limited: Meta may limit the ability to pay to avoid ads to certain countries, similarly to how it handles this on Facebook and Instagram.

As the line between personal messaging and social media continues to blur, WhatsApp’s transition into a “freemium” service feels like the end of an era. For now, the core of WhatsApp, private conversations between users, remains untouched and ad-free.

However, now that the infrastructure is in place, Meta might consider pushing ads more aggressively on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp: Ads in status, promoted channels, and channel subscriptions on their way

Posted on June 16, 2025June 16, 2025 by Martin Brinkmann

Meta-owned WhatsApp announced new features for the messaging service’s updates tab designed to “help” WhatsApp users find more channels and businesses on the messaging platform.

All three features are added to the tab updates in WhatsApp. They are:

Channel subscriptions – WhatsApp users may support channels by subscribing to them for a monthly fee. May also receive exclusive updates as part of the subscription.
Promoted channels – Allows channel owners to increase the visibility of their channel through promotions. Pay Meta for that privilege.
Ads in Status: Businesses may promote content in their Status.

The primary purpose of these changes is to increase monetization on the platform and thus Meta’s revenue. Channel owners may pay Meta to increase the visibility of their channels. They may then get some recurring revenue going through subscriptions, of which Meta will likely also get its share. Ads in status are also likely not for free, which means that channel owners pay Meta for the privilege of displaying ads there.

Good news for WhatsApp users who do not use updates: if you do not access updates, you do not see the changes.

When you access updates right now, you see the subscribed channels and status updates. With the update, that is not going to change, but you may see other content under updates when you open it in the future.

Privacy remains top priority, says WhatsApp

WhatsApp says that privacy remains a top priority for the service. Means, messages, calls, and status are end-to-end encrypted, so that they remain accessible only to the user and the user’s contacts.

To show relevant ads, WhatsApp is using “limited info”, including the user’s country or city, language, followed channels, and interactions with advertisement on the platform. Furthermore, users who have added WhatsApp to Accounts Center will also have their ad preferences and info used from across their Meta accounts.

To be fair, this approach to advertising appears fairer than the tracker-based advertising that is the norm on today’s Internet, if true.

Now You: do you use WhatsApp at all? What about the Updates tab? Or do you prefer an alternative? Let me know in the comments below.

WhatsApp finally has an answer for annoying voice messages

Posted on November 22, 2024November 22, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

I have to admit that I do use WhatsApp for communication with certain relatives and friends. Some of them have the habit of sending voice messages instead of text messages.

If you are like me, you dislike this a lot. I have to play the messages to listen to them, and may have to replay them, if something is not clear. To play a message, I need to either use headphones or play the message in a location where it does not bother anyone else.

Related:

WhatsApp: set an optional username and Pin for protection against unwanted messages

Voice Message Transcripts

WhatsApp has announced a new feature that puts an end to this. It is called voice message transcripts and will transcribe voice messages to text for you.

Here are the details:

Voice Message Transcripts are disabled by default.
Long-press on a message and select the transcribe option to start the process.
WhatsApp says the processing happens on the local device.

The feature is rolling out to all users of WhatsApp in the coming weeks. To enable it, go to Settings > Chats > Voice message transcripts. If you do not see the option at this point, check at a later point again.

You may also set the preferred language for the transcriptions. Note that this may require a download of a language pack to the device for the selected language.

Once enabled, long-press any voice message and select transcribe to get a text version of the message.

WhatsApp notes that there may be issues during the process. The app displays “Transcript unavailable” as an error message then.

This may have different causes, including:

The transcript language does not match the voice message language.
Some words are not recognized, likely because of background noise.
The language of the voice message is not supported.

Closing Words

The new option is useful, but it still requires manual action for each voice message. It would be great if WhatsApp would implement an auto-transcribe feature, as it would improve the process further.

Do you use WhatsApp? What is your take on the feature? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

WhatsApp: set an optional username and Pin for protection against unwanted messages

Posted on August 20, 2024August 20, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

WhatsApp is working on a new feature that is intended to improve the privacy of its users. The main idea adds two new features to the messaging service:

Let users create a username, which they then may share with others instead of their phone number.
Add a Pin to the username to block unwanted messages to that username.

Any WhatsApp user may contact any other user on the platform currently. All that is required for that is a phone number. While the contacted user has the option to block any further messages or communication attempts, it is still a major nuisance.

WhatsApp users who want to communicate with someone on WhatsApp need to hand out their phone number to do so currently. This may not be a problem for someone trusted, but it could very well end in disaster for others.

Did you know? WhatsApp is also working on limiting spam messages by blocking messages from unknown accounts that exceed a certain limit.

The optional username addresses this. Instead of handing out the phone number, you could create and then hand out the username only. This protects the phone number, but still allows others to communicate with you on WhatsApp.

The pin adds a second layer of protection. While completely optional, it will prompt anyone for the pin when trying to contact WhatsApp users using their username.

WhatsApp users who pick a popular or common name for their username may want to add a pin, as spammers may start to send messages to these names in the hope that they have been created by someone on the platform.

WABetaInfo reports that the feature is in testing in the latest Beta version of WhatsApp. Not every beta tester is given access to new features and it may take some time before a feature is rolled out to more users.

There is also the chance that a feature is never making it into stable WhatsApp. Only time will tell if and when we are going to see the new username and pin option.

Closing Words

Adding a username option to WhatsApp makes a lot of sense from a user’s privacy point of view. WhatsApp is no longer just used to communicate with friends or family. Even in some of those cases, you may prefer not to hand out your phone number.

What is your take on this new feature? Would you create a username, if WhatsApp would launch it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

WhatsApp: the end of Spam? New feature is a tiny step towards that goal

Posted on August 17, 2024August 17, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will block messages from unknown accounts. Before you get too excited about it, there is a big but coming up soon.

If you are using WhatsApp, you may have experienced your fair share of spam. Be it messages from unknown accounts or even calls.

Over the past couple of weeks, I received a significant number of spam calls and also messages. The chat messages promised work, money, a girlfriend, and other things.

It is simple to block interactions with certain accounts on WhatsApp once they try to reach out to you. There are not that many options to block spam before it reaches your device though.

Soon, WhatsApp users will have another weapon in their arsenal to fight spam before it reaches the user’s device. (via WABetaInfo)

The details:

A new option to block unknown account messages is being tested in the WhatsApp beta.
It blocks messages from unknown accounts, but only if they “exceed a certain volume”.
Not every beta tester has the feature at this point.

In other words: If WhatsApp notices a certain amount of spam from a particular user, it will block that user’s ability to send more spam.

WhatsApp does not say how it detects spam messaging attempts. It is possible that it is using spam reports by users for that. This would mean, and here comes the aforementioned but, that spam will still land on user devices.

Not necessarily as much as before, as WhatsApp will pull the plug on the account’s ability to send messages once the threshold is reached.

Even if WhatsApp uses an automated system, it still means that spam will land on user devices, albeit less than before presumably.

Closing Words

All in all, it is a welcome new option that may reduce spam on the platform. It appears that the feature is disabled by default. You may need to enable it under Settings > Privacy > Advanced.

Do you use WhatsApp? Did you receive spam in the past? Would you enable the new feature once it becomes available? Let us know in the comments below.