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This is interesting, privacy and security work both ways. Protecting us and our data and enabling malicious actors. I have turned off Auto Downloads on Whatsapp.

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I never understood why that feature is not disabled by default. I am so tired of this madness for frictionless UX everywhere. Just because someone has to have everything readily available without having to click.

Where is the UX when someone sends stupid dumb pictures constantly in groups you belong to? And those get downloaded automatically. Or where is the UX when someone hacks your phone thanks to this "feature" enabled?

Even IE disabled this feature!

I’m still grateful that this feature is still available behind a toggle and not whatsapp using its smarts to decide what should be downloaded or not. But I can understand the desire for frictionless user experience because for vast majority of the population this is not an issue. If you hold something of significance it is upto you to practise and execute sensible security measures.

Yes, I agree. It should be turned off by default.

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