Carlos E. R. wrote on 31.07.2021 19:44
> Yes, I seem to recall having to install external apps that would tell
> whatsap to start a chat on whatever number not in the contact list, but
> I do not like the idea.
Hi Carlos,
It's nice to be able to carry on a civil conversation, where I can learn
from you (I'm always a mirror of intent)since you use Whatsapp more than we
do in the USA (for the obvious reasons that you get charged for text/calls).
Just to be clear, the apps I chose are all free & ad free, and all but one
is GSF free, so they're not intrusive, and, better yet, I believe they can
be _uninstalled_ once they add the one contact to the WhatsApp application.
> My issue is not privacy, but contacting (for instance) a repair man that
> is coming to my home and wants to see a photo of what he is going to
> repair, or my location (two things for which we use whatsap), and I'm
> never again going to contact this person, so no real want to have him in
> my contact list. And it adds a delay.
I can fully agree with what you say, and, in fact, one of the apps I listed
is expressly for that purpose of contacting people _not_ in your contacts.
> So far, it happens so few times that I just add the contact with a
> "temporary" prefix. It helps to know why I have that chat in my list of
> chats.
Adding a temporary contact certainly would work (which is what I did).
But I suspect it's even easier to use one of the apps I unearthed because
once they add the contact to WhatsApp, I suspect you can _delete_ the apps.
This is the temporary contact method:
1. Create a temporary contact
2. Add that person to Whatsapp
3. Delete the temporary contact
This is the temporary adding method:
1. Install the workaround app
2. Use that workaround app to add that person to Whatsapp
3. Delete the workaround app
Since I don't even have a contacts sqlite database, the second approach
works for me, but for people with a contacts list, the first might work.
> Here, whatsap is a must have application. Everybody has it. Even people
> of 90 years with abilities use it.
Understood.
The only thing I don't like about the temporary contacts trick is that most
people don't have an empty contacts sqlite database like I do, so they're
still providing a window to Whatapp of _all_ their contacts.
Whether or not Whatsapp _keeps_ that window of all contacts, I don't know.
>> Is that contacts.sqlite database _uploaded_ to WhatsApp servers nowadays?
>
> I can't vouch for it, but being facebook I have my little doubts.
This is the key question.
What does Whatsapp do with the contacts database it so desperately wants.
> What I know that whatsapp doesn't do is send an email or sms to your
> contacts asking them to join - a practice that I have seen before in
> other software, perhaps facebook and others. That was long ago.
It would be nice to find out what Whatsapp _does_ with our contacts.
> All it apparently does, locally, is scan your system contact list and
> display in whatsap list those that do have whatsap. For this, obviously
> it has to query whatsap servers to find "is this number in our list of
> clients"? You might consider this intrusive, but it is a needed feature
> and other messaging apps do have similar features.
For me, it only needs to "scan" the single person I am contacting.
Nobody else.
> What they can't do is store in the servers the numbers that were queried
> (and were not clients already), AFAIK.
That may be the case in the EU (and that would be great if it is), but we
need to better figure out whether that also applies to USA Whatsapp owners.
> In your case, as you only have one number in the contact list, and that
> number is obviously known to whatsap servers (being a client), there is
> no issue at all. You don't _need_ to bother.
My contacts list is actually empty (there's not even one contact in it).
I can directly dial anyone via WhatsApp with the apps that I installed.
BTW only one of the three is needed; I just tested them to see if they work.
Click to chat [small, no ads], by TrianguloY
>> None of those work if the other person doesn't _also_ use them, but this
>> person is using Whatsapp because her friends & relatives in Europe use it.
>
> So do we us all :-)
Yup. I am forced to use Whatsapp so _they_ aren't charged when I call/text.
Luckily, with these workarounds, my contact list privacy is maintained.
It would be nice if others supply better workarounds for Whatsapp privacy.