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tomer8007 / whatsapp-web-incognito

A Chrome extension that disables read receipts and presence updates on WhatsApp Web
MIT License
319 stars 75 forks source link

Auto mark personal chats as read if read receipts are disabled #16

Closed izzues closed 4 years ago

izzues commented 4 years ago

I've been using WhatsApp with read receipts turned off, and this extension has been very useful for staying invisible in group chats, viewing statuses and playing media. But for personal conversations it's actually become annoying, because to get rid of the unread count I need to either reply to the person or click "mark as read" and confirm it in the popup, rather than just viewing the conversation.

So it would be nice if the extension could detect whether read receipts are turned on or off, and if they're off it could just mark personal chats as read as you view them. I'm not sure if this automatic detection is possible, so just adding it as an option would already be very useful!

As always, thanks a lot for your work!

tomer8007 commented 4 years ago

Sending read receipts by default to all personal chats even when the blocking is on would probably not be what most people expect, but I agree the popup could be annoying when you actually have an ongoing conversation.

I think instead we could add the option to never show the popup again, which connects to your previous issue.

izzues commented 4 years ago

Hello, tomer! Thanks again for your replies.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I don't know what most people expect, but isn't being "invisible" to others the only purpose of the extension? Other people (in private conversations) don't see the read receipts you've sent if you have disabled them on the app, right? If the extension did what I propose, you would still be invisible, the only difference would be that you would be able to view the conversations you visited as read, without having to mark them as such. So currently hiding the popup is not enough, you still have to mark the conversation as read (either manually or by replying), which would be unnecessary if the extension did what I described.

tomer8007 commented 4 years ago

So if I understand you correctly, you just want to get rid of the green unread counter whenever you really read a personal chat so that it won't confuse you later?

izzues commented 4 years ago

Yes, that's pretty much it :)

tomer8007 commented 4 years ago

Okay, So to handle this problem I initially thought that since completely eliminating the unread counter in the web version does not impact your phone (which may or may not be confusing), changing its color from green to red ('read and blocked' mode) could be a fair enough indicator.

Now the problem with this is that maybe this still looks like it's unread. You see, from WhatsApp's standpoint, unread counter in the GUI means that read receipts were not sent and vice versa.

What do you think?

izzues commented 4 years ago

Sorry for the delay!

My previous reply wasn't completely accurate. I not only want to "get rid" of the counter on the web version, but also on my phone, so I suppose the only solution (for me, but I understand if others don't like it) really is to send the receipts. The red color on the web version sure would help (though to be honest I'd prefer grey or any other dimmed color), but it still wouldn't be enough since I do pick up my phone from time to time and still get confused by notifications and messages on the widget and the app itself.

tomer8007 commented 4 years ago

So basically what's the possible enhancement here? Sending read receipts when you read messages even when blocking is turned on is just lying.

izzues commented 4 years ago

As I said, at least for me, the utility of the extension has nothing to do with sending read receipts or not, but simply with beeing seen by other users or not. So of course if you have read receipts turned on in the app the extension should block them. But if you have them disabled, no one is going to see them, whether they're sent or not. Having "blocking" turned on in this context is still useful as long as it keeps people from seeing me online (and as I said, the blocking is still useful for viewing groups, statuses and media).

So I don't see any advantage in not sending receipts if people are not going to notice any difference, while you are going to see the messages you've read as actually read. Maybe other people have different concerns (e.g. they don't want even WhatsApp itself to know if you've seen the message, but that would be pretty pointless if you're still going to use the app).

In short, the enhancement the extension should provide (from my point of view) is staying invisible in situations that are not covered by the privacy options enabled in the app, while not unnecessarily "breaking" things (such as read receipts when you've actually read messages). Hopefully I made things clearer!

(As for "lying", once again I think it's a matter of purpose: If the purpose is to be invisible, the extension doesn't have to pretend it's blocking everything - on the contrary, it can make it clear that you're sending receipts but staying invisible.)

tomer8007 commented 4 years ago

But if you have them disabled, no one is going to see them, whether they're sent or not

Umm still not sure I got you here. If I turn off blocking read receipts, whoever the read receipt was sent to will see it.

By saying "invisible" you mean blocking read receipts for groups (plus statuses), and blocking "Last Seen", right? Your problem is that you do want read receipts to be sent in private conversations, but you don't want to become "visible", am I correct?

izzues commented 4 years ago

Alright, so here's how I see it:

My proposal is:

My point is that, whether you send receipts or not when "invisible mode" is enabled in the extension and receipts are disabled in WhatsApp, in terms of "invisibility" the end result is the same: other people won't see the receipts as read (... or am I wrong?), so sending the receipts in personal chats has no downsides and has the upside of letting you see them as read.

Anyway, it's just a tiny UX thing (and inconsistent, since you can't have it for group chats), so it's ok if you think it's not a good idea.

tomer8007 commented 4 years ago

Oh, thank you for this explanation, now I finally understand (didn't realise you are referring to the WhatsApp fetaure).

So yeah, this is a good idea for people that have read receipts disabled on their phone, and it only depends on the technical abillity to detect this from the Web. I think it's possible. Will take a look at it.

izzues commented 4 years ago

Awesome! Sorry for not being clear enough for so long and thank you so much for your attention!

tomer8007 commented 4 years ago

So it looks like WhatsApp Web always tries to sent out the read request when you view a personal chat, regardless of the read receipts option on the phone. It is then the phone that doesn't relay the request in case read receipts are disabled.

Also I didn't see any packets coming in to the web when I enabled\disabled that option, and therefore I think such a feature is not really possible.

izzues commented 4 years ago

Oh, what a pity! Thanks for looking into this anyway! Feel free to close the issue :)