Tech Wrap: WhatsApp's disappearing messages, Cloudflare wants to kill CAPTCHA

It was an eventful day in the world of tech today, with interesting stories from Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp – these companies are either working on new features or trying to solve pandemic-related problems on their platforms. Meanwhile, a popular web infrastructure company has announced the launch of new technology that it wants to use to replace bothersome CAPTCHA challenges while browsing the internet.

In case you missed anything, here are the top tech stories of the day:

WhatsApp may soon allow setting ‘Disappearing Messages’ for new chats by default

The Facebook-owned encrypted messenger app hasn’t had the best reputation for privacy, especially considering it just revised its privacy policy to begin sharing data about your interactions with businesses on the platform – with parent company Facebook. However, the app is reportedly working on one of its infrequent additions to its Privacy settings - the ability to turn on Disappearing Messages by default for every new chat, controlled by one toggle.

Facebook scrambles to take down profile frames with anti-vaccine claims

While privacy has been one area where Facebook has had a very spotty past, it is handling misinformation and fake news that the company has received a lot of criticism for this year. With the arrival of coronavirus vaccines, many users have taken to the platform to make anti-vaccine claims using profile photo frames. The company is now rushing to quickly take down these anti-vaccine frames as they violate the company’s policies on misinformation.

Twitter Blue, a paid subscription service, could launch soon

We’ve previously reported on Twitter’s upcoming Undo Send feature for tweets, as well as bookmark collections. These features are rumoured to be part of the company’s paid subscription, and a new leak from researcher Jane Manchun Wong suggests that Twitter is all set to call this paid subscription ‘Twitter Blue’. Here’s what it is expected to cost and everything that users might be able to expect from the paid subscription.

Cloudflare wants to kill CAPTCHAs so you never have to identify fire hydrants or traffic lights again

Are you frustrated with solving CAPTCHAs (or Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) on random websites as you browse the web? If looking for fire hydrants, crosswalks, boats and cars in a set of nine images on the web makes you impatient like us, internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare has a solution. Using trusted USB keys, the company wants to get rid of CAPTCHAs entirely, so you’ll never be bothered by another “challenge” again.