why is disappearing messages still so broken on most apps?
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disappearing messages on whatsapp and telegram feel kind of fake to me. you still see chat previews, people take screenshots, and the timers are either 24 hours or a week which defeats the entire point. if someone really needs privacy like in legal stuff or whistleblowing, a message should just burn 10 seconds after reading and leave zero trace in device memory. why does nobody build actual zero footprint chat into the web instead of forcing everyone to keep message history?
UFFF
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“Zero footprint” sounds nice, but I feel like that’s impossible to guarantee once another person can see the screen. You can delete the message, not what someone does with it.
10 seconds would be great for a code or something super sensitive. For an actual conversation tho? I’d probably miss half of it .
Honestly, WhatsApp disappearing messages feel more like “let’s not keep this chat forever.” This sounds way more intentional than that.
The preview thing is what gets me. Why have a disappearing message if the notification can basically show it before I even open the app?
The browser part sounds harder than the timer. Making a message vanish is easy. Making sure nothing useful is left behind after that different story.
I’d actually use this for random one time stuff too. Addresses, temporary codes, instructions etc. Not everything needs to live in my chat history forever.
For whistleblowing, I kinda get it. But with legal stuff, having absolutely no record could backfire too. Sometimes you need proof later.