The long-awaited WeChat friends feature is finally here, and netizens are calling it “cool”

Who doesn’t have hundreds of friends on WeChat these days? But there aren’t many people who are in regular contact with them. For these friends who are not in regular contact with them, some people would like to check whether they have deleted them.

If the other party deletes you unilaterally, they can also quietly add you back without you receiving any reminders. During the whole process, you will never know that the other party has deleted you. You often only find out when you send a message to them.

Are you disgusted when you see a big red exclamation mark?

Some people want to know how many "zombie friends" they have on WeChat, so they listen to what is said online and send a message to "clean up zombie fans" in groups. There are two results:

① It was not deleted by the other party, but was severely despised by the other party afterwards; ② It was not deleted by the other party originally, but now it reminds the other party that it is time to clean up this friend ( fool ) .

At present, the most basic way to detect which friends have deleted you is to send a message directly to the other party (except for the "dead fans cleaning" message) . If the other party has not deleted you, then be prepared for the awkward chat that may begin next.

Advanced approach:

①Create a group chat

Select the friends who you think might delete you, and then create a group chat. If someone among the selected friends has deleted you, WeChat will display "You need to add friends to add group chat". After confirming, you can delete the group chat.

It should be noted that the number of people selected for the group chat cannot be too large, otherwise WeChat will have a reminder. According to tests by some netizens, the upper limit is 40 people .

And once you accidentally send a message in a group, the group is truly established. As long as you are not embarrassed, others will be embarrassed.

②Delete friends and add them again

You can delete the "suspicious" friend first, and then add him/her back. If the other party has not deleted you, you can add him/her directly without any verification. Otherwise, there will be corresponding prompts.

Also, be sure to write down the other party’s WeChat ID before testing to avoid losing it after deleting it.

③Transfer

You can also select friends in WeChat to transfer money. Once the other party deletes you, WeChat will remind the friend who is not the recipient when entering the payment password.

Another "desperate" method is to use plug-in tools, but the safety cannot be guaranteed and the account may be blocked in minutes.

The above feasible methods are too cumbersome and may create a "social death scene" if you are not careful.

It is worth noting that Tencent’s latest patent application seems to be designed for this purpose.

According to Qichacha, Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. recently disclosed a patent for "one-way friend detection method, device, medium and computer equipment for social account". The application date is October 22, 2019.

The patent abstract shows that this application involves a one-way friend detection method, device, medium and computer equipment for a social account. The method is shown in the following figure:

Don’t understand the text? No problem, the patent drawings are very straightforward:

▷Patent drawings

Tencent said that the method is simple to operate, does not require sending a large amount of redundant information, improves the efficiency of one-way friend detection, and reduces system consumption.

WeChat's friend function has always been the target of complaints. Many people suggest that WeChat can launch a "two-way deletion" function, that is, when the other party deletes their WeChat, the other party's friend card will also disappear from their address book. This can avoid many embarrassing and unpleasant situations.

However, WeChat has not taken any action despite years of calls for action, and the patent disclosed by Tencent this time has also been criticized by netizens. Is it necessary to apply for a patent for just an instruction?

Moreover, our brother QQ has already launched the [two-way deletion] function.

If the official WeChat decision not to launch the "two-way deletion" function is due to security considerations, users can actually accept this reason.

Because after "deleting friends in both directions", the chat records between you and the other party will also be automatically deleted. If there is no debt or verbal promise between the two of you, then the chat records can be deleted, it doesn't matter.

But if the chat records contain financial transactions between two people, for example, the other party borrowed your money and didn't want to pay it back and then deleted you both, then the chat records as the final evidence will be nowhere to be found. This feeling is really frustrating.

Users can compromise on the "two-way deletion" function, but is it not too much to ask WeChat to officially release a detection function?

And it is not difficult to achieve technically.

Because QQ has already made it. Open QQ, click on the avatar, select [Settings] in the lower left corner, find [Privacy], and you will see a function called [One-way Friend Management] .

Of course, this one-way friend is different from WeChat. It means that the other party has your QQ number in their friend list, but you don’t have the other party in your friend list.

These "one-way friends" can view your personal signature, QQ space, etc.

After finding this kind of one-way friend, it will be displayed in the dialog box as a non-friend and needs to be added. However, messages can still be sent to the other party normally.

After finding all the single friends, the operation is very simple. You can delete them in batches to save time and effort!

The official also explained the reason why [One-way Friends] came into being.

In addition, QQ has long had the function of "viewing friends' social data", such as "inactive group members" in QQ groups.

The "Last login time" in the QQ Friend Manager can clearly show which friends logged into QQ a week, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or earlier.

The demand for automatic friend detection has always existed, and QQ users have already mastered this function. As for WeChat, is it really so willful that it never considers this demand of users?

In fact, this is not the case. Many people may not have noticed that WeChat also developed a similar detection function in 2017, allowing us to identify with one click which people we have not contacted for a long time and may not need to continue to be friends with.

This is the function of "Friends Whom You Don't Contact Often" .

It can filter friends based on three conditions: no one-on-one chats within six months, no common small groups, and no reply to his (her) circle of friends within six months.

The intention of this function is obvious, which is to find out those friends with whom you have not had any interaction for half a year, and then clean up your long address book.

At that time, some netizens shared that they had a total of 482 contacts, and 452 of them were “no one they had a single chat with in half a year”!

But what happens after this function detects them? Will anyone really delete the friends they don't contact with with one click? As in the case of the netizen mentioned above, if they clean up all the friends, I'm afraid they will have few friends left, right?

Moreover, there are people in our WeChat list who we haven’t chatted with, liked, or contacted for a long time. Some of them will be visited offline during the holidays. The relationships of many people do not need to be maintained by chat tools.

Perhaps because they noticed that this function could not help us further filter friends, WeChat quietly took it offline later.

Of course, similar functions have also attracted many netizens, who believe that this method can help alleviate social phobia and reduce people's consumption of meaningless social interactions. Since there is nothing to say, let's forget each other!

Compared with "friends who are not in frequent contact", users want to "delete my friends/block my friends". There are risks in deleting friends in both directions, but it is necessary to detect one-way friends. If the other party has deleted you, you should have the right to know. After much anticipation, WeChat finally gave everyone a glimpse of hope. Now that the patent has been made public, will the "one-way friend deletion query" function be far away?