7 Privacy Settings to Check in Your Messaging Apps

 TRY THIS NOW Quick action: Open your main messaging app's privacy settings and check who can see your profile photo.

We share more of our lives in messaging apps than anywhere else  family photos, voice notes, locations, sometimes even documents. Yet most people install the app and never touch the privacy settings. Five quiet minutes today can hide a lot from people who have no business seeing it.

Here are the seven settings worth checking on WhatsApp, Viber, Signal, Telegram, and most similar apps.

1. Limit who sees your profile photo and "last seen"

Your profile photo, status, and last-seen time are often visible to anyone with your number, including strangers from group chats. Set these to My Contacts or even Nobody. There's rarely a good reason for the whole world to know when you were last online.

2. Control who can add you to groups

Getting pulled into random promotional or scam groups is more than annoying; it exposes your number to strangers. Most apps let you require an invite first, or limit group-adds to your contacts only. Turn that on and enjoy the silence.

3. Lock the app itself

If someone borrows or steals your unlocked phone, your chats are wide open. Many messaging apps offer a fingerprint or face lock, and your phone's own app-lock features work too. It's a small barrier that protects a huge amount of personal life.

4. Turn on two-step verification for your account

Someone who tricks or SIM-swaps your number can try to register your messaging account on their phone. An in-app PIN stops them cold. Every major messaging app offers this under account or security settings — set it up once and forget it.

5. Check linked devices regularly

Web and desktop versions stay signed in until you sign them out. Open the linked devices section now and then, and remove anything you don't recognize or no longer use. An old session on a shared computer is an open window into your chats.

6. Be smart about media auto-download

Auto-downloading every photo and video fills your storage and can drop unwanted content straight into your gallery. Set media to download on Wi-Fi only, or manually, and choose whether chat photos appear in your phone's main gallery at all.

7. Understand your backup settings

End-to-end encryption protects messages in transit, but cloud backups may follow different rules. Check how your chat backups are stored, whether they're encrypted, and protect your Google or Apple account with a strong password and two-step verification, since that account holds the keys.

None of these settings stops you from messaging normally. They simply decide who else gets to look. Pick your most-used app, run through the list, and you're done in minutes.

Trusted resources

· WhatsApp: Security and privacy information

· Signal: Support Center

Helpful reminder: Menus and features can vary by app, software version, country, and device. Check your app's official help pages when options look different.

6 Easy Ways to Use Less Mobile Data Each Month

 TRY THIS NOW Quick action: Open your data usage settings and find the one app that used the most mobile data this month.

If your data plan keeps running out a week before it should, the problem usually isn't how much you browse — it's what your apps are doing while you're not looking. A few small changes can cut your monthly usage dramatically, and you won't feel like you're missing anything.

Start with these six.

1. Find the real data eaters

Both Android and iPhone show data usage broken down by app, right in your settings. Check it before changing anything else. The answer is usually streaming, social media, or one misbehaving app — and once you can see it, you can fix it.

2. Stop apps from working in the background

Many apps quietly refresh, sync, and preload content on mobile data all day long. Turn off background data or background app refresh for apps that don't need it, like games and shopping apps. Your email and messages will still work fine.

3. Turn on the built-in data saver

Android's Data Saver and iPhone's Low Data Mode ask your phone and apps to use less data automatically. It's one switch, it takes ten seconds, and for most people that's an instant 20 to 30 percent saving. Probably the best effort-to-reward ratio on this list.

4. Lower streaming quality on mobile data

Video is the single biggest data user for most people. Set YouTube, Netflix, and music apps to standard quality on mobile data — most apps have this option buried in their own settings. On a phone screen, the difference is hard to notice. On your bill, it's not.

5. Download on Wi-Fi, enjoy anywhere

Maps for trips, playlists, podcasts, that series for the bus ride — download them on Wi-Fi before you leave the house. Streaming the same playlist every day on mobile data is like buying the same song again every morning.

6. Watch the sneaky small stuff

Auto-playing videos in social feeds, photos auto-uploading on mobile data, apps updating over cellular — each one is small, but together they're a steady leak. Set app updates and cloud backups to Wi-Fi only, and switch off video autoplay where you can.

Do steps one and three today, then add the rest this week. Most people can stay comfortably inside their plan without changing what they actually do — only how their phone prepares for it.

Trusted resources

· Google: Android Help Center

· Apple: iPhone User Guide

Helpful reminder: Menus and features can vary by device, software version, country, and service provider. Data pricing differs by carrier, so ask yours about any free or discounted data options too.

7 Ways to Spot a Fake Gadget When Shopping Online

 TRY THIS NOW Quick action: Before your next online gadget purchase, compare the price with the official brand website.

Counterfeit gadgets have gotten good. The box looks right, the photos look right, and the fake earbuds even pair with your phone. What you usually get instead is poor sound, a dying battery, and in the case of chargers, a genuine safety risk. Before you buy, run through these seven checks.

1. Question the too-good price

A genuine product priced 60 or 70 percent below official retail is not a bargain  it's a warning. Check the price on the brand's own website first. Real discounts exist, but they rarely look like miracles.

2. Investigate the seller, not just the product

On marketplaces, tap the seller's name. How long have they been active? What do their reviews say, and do the reviews sound like real people? A "just launched" seller with a hot product and rock-bottom price deserves a hard pass.

3. Read reviews like a detective

Ignore the star average and read the negative recent reviews. Words like "stopped working in a week," "packaging looked opened," or "serial number invalid" are gold. Also watch for floods of vague five-star reviews posted in a short period  fakes often fake their praise too.

4. Check the listing's photos and words

Blurry logos, slightly wrong colors, spelling mistakes, and "fashion new hot sale" descriptions are classic counterfeit tells. If the listing photos look copied from the official site but the title oddly avoids the brand name, walk away.

5. Verify the serial number or warranty

Many brands let you confirm a product's serial number on their official website, and some verify it before or right after purchase. If the seller hesitates when you ask for the serial, or verification fails, that's your answer.

6. Buy from authorized sellers when it matters

For anything that plugs into a wall or sits in your ears for hours  chargers, power banks, earbuds — stick with the brand's own store or an authorized retailer. A fake charger isn't just a bad deal; it can overheat and damage your device.

7. Pay in a way that protects you

Use payment methods with buyer protection, such as credit cards or well-known payment services. Avoid direct bank transfers, "friends and family" payments, and anything the seller suggests to "avoid fees." That request alone tells you plenty.

Real gadgets come with proof: a verifiable serial, a real warranty, a seller with a history. If a deal can't survive these seven checks, it was never a deal.

Trusted resources

· Apple: Check your service and support coverage

· US Federal Trade Commission: Shopping and consumer protection advice

Helpful reminder: Stock, prices, and seller policies can vary by country, store, and season. When in doubt, check the brand's official website or an authorized retailer near you.