WAToolkit for Chrome

With one of the biggest user bases, WhatsApp is one of the most, if not the most, popular instant messaging apps for smartphones, and for good reason.

The only real annoying "limiting" factor was, quite amusingly, that it forced users to use they mobile phones with tiny screens in order to chat with other people, an issue that WhatsApp Web solved quite ingeniously, only to add even more notoriety to the platform.

Even so, there are a few things that can be improved on WhatsApp's web-based app, as WAToolkit, a tiny Chrome extension, avidly points out.

Basically, this neat extension is focused on the way you are notified when receiving messages via the popular WhatsApp Web. For starters, it allows you to receive messages, as well as notifications, without having an active WhatsApp Web session and, probably even more impressive is the fact that it also works if Chrome has been shut down.

Once installed from the Chrome Web Store, it automatically integrates with both Chrome's toolbar (via a small icon on the right side of the address bar) and with WhatsApp Web's main UI. From this point onwards, you are notified of unread messages via number badges on the aforementioned icon.

Hover the icon with the cursor, and you'll also notice a set of handy tooltip previews of your conversations. This is also the best time to point out that if there's a connectivity problem between your phone and WhatsApp Web app, the icon will turn orange.

Head over to WAToolkit's options section, readily accessible from WhatsApp Web App's main panel (on the left side of the Menu and New Chat buttons) and you can enable or disable the Background Notifications and Wide text bubbles features.

In just a few words, when the first feature is activated, you'll receive system (desktop) notifications, as mentioned before, even when WhatsApp Web or even Chrome are turned off. But there's a small catch: the "regular" WhatsApp notifications need to be enabled in order for this feature to work.

To conclude, if you're using WhatsApp web app on a regular basis then we encourage you to give WAToolkit a quick try-out. The extension is very easy to install and use, it's extremely light on resources, and it's also quite unobtrusive, not to mention the fact that it does a stellar job at making sure that you will never miss a WhatsApp notification when you're using your computer.