Rumor: WhatsApp will soon offer the option to turn off blue checks

WhatsApp users will soon have the option to disable the blue check marks. That says a beta tester of WhatsApp, who in the past often brought out new functionality of the chat application.

The German Ilhan Pektas say on Twitter that the blue check marks will be a setting to disable. Pektas has often shown in the past that it has test versions of the chat app and often released unannounced features.

WhatsApp turned on a new feature on Wednesday evening, in which read messages are given two blue checks. It is the first time that WhatsApp gives an indication that a chat message has actually been read. The feature raised the eyebrows of many users on Thursday, because many do not like the sender to see that they have read his message.

Users can already prevent the sender from getting the blue ticks by reading the messages on the lock screen, in the notification bar, via a smartwatch or other accessory, or via applications such as Pushbullet, which pass on notifications to the PC.