A Whatsapp App Page Is Seen On Facebook On A Samsung Galaxy S4 Phone
A Whatsapp App page is seen on Facebook on a Samsung Galaxy S4 phone in the central Bosnian town of Zenica, February 20, 2014. Facebook Inc will buy fast-growing mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash and stock in a landmark deal that places the world's largest social network closer to the heart of mobile communications and may bring younger users into the fold. Reuters/Dado Ruvic

In the previous week, Whatsapp was updated to introduce a new feature called "double blue ticks." This feature allowed users to know the exact time when their messages were read. However, it did not receive good reception, as users could no longer make excuses to the sender in order to avoid replying to a message by saying "I read your message late" or "I just saw your text now." In other words, the sender is instantly notified when the receiver views the message. When the feature was launched, there was no option to disable it.

Last week, WhatsApp started a new feature in which the double tick marks changed to blue colour when the recipient read the message. The feature is also available in group chat sessions and broadcast messages. If the two tick marks remained gray, it meant the recipient did not open the message or may be using an out-of-date version of Whatsaapp or encountering unstable connectivity.

Various reports say the newly added feature instantly kicked off a storm as many started complaining about invasion of privacy. Whatsapp has released another update to its "Read Receipts" feature that can be used for disabling double blue ticks. Users can navigate to Settings > Privacy and disable it. By doing this, one will no longer see the blue ticks when they view their received messages.

The "Read Receipts" feature is currently available on the beta version of Whatsapp 2.11.44, which is currently not available on Google Play Store but can be accessed manually through the app's official website. This feature is only available for Android users for now. However, owners of iDevices can download a custom disabler via WCCFTech. All other iOs users though will have to wait for some time until developers at WhatsApp release an update. Other platforms like Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS will also have to be patient until updates will start rolling out, states TechnoBuffalo.