In the latest update to its instant messenger, Meta expanded the default end-to-end encryption support for all chats in the Messenger app.
Also, Facebook Messenger received new themes, custom emojis and reactions, group profile photos, link previews, and active status support. Though announced today, these features will be rolling out gradually to everyone who’s running the latest version of Messenger.
Facebook Messenger New Features
While Facebook and Instagram are facing the backlash of being negatively impactful, Messenger is growing well as a standalone app. The Meta (formerly Facebook) branded instant messenger has billions of users accessing it for communications regularly.
Thus, in a pursuit to make their conversations more secure and better, Facebook announced a new update to Messenger – that expands the default end-to-end encryption for chats to more people. Well, end-to-end encryption has long been available in the form of ‘secret conversations’ though, but now it’s coming to general chats too.
Facebook has been testing this with limited people for the last five months and now expands to more people – to make their chats secure. These are enabled by default to all the regular chats and will be notified to users when working.
Talking about this expansion, Meta’s Melissa Miranda said
“Over the next few months, more people will continue to see some of their chats gradually being upgraded with an extra layer of protection provided by end-to-end encryption.”
Further, E2EE will be enabled randomly to chats – thus, it wouldn’t create a negative impact on their infrastructure or the users’ chat experience. Aside from this, Messenger is also getting support for new chat themes, custom emojis, message reactions, group profile photos, link previews, and active status.
Rival messengers like WhatsApp, Google Messages, Apple’s iMessage, and even Instagram have end-to-end encryption support already, with Facebook Messenger picking it up now.
