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Samsung ChatOn update deletes messages, Snapchat-style

Samsung ChatOn version 3.5 lets you delete messages even after they've been read, as well as adding new location, language and file-sharing features.

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Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
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Richard Trenholm
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Samsung ChatOn adds message deletion, finding friends and 1GB file transfer. Samsung

Samsung has taken a page out of Snapchat 's book -- and then thrown that page away so you can't read it any more. The own-brand instant messaging service now lets you delete messages even after they've been read, one of the new features in an update.

ChatOn users will now be able to erase messages sent in 1:1 chat rooms after they've been sent and read, by tapping and holding the message bubble and selecting 'Recall.' Version 3.5 of ChatOn also adds location options to show your friends where you are and what route you're travelling, as well as sharing files sized up to 1GB.

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Group chats now allow 1,001 Chatty Cathys to pile into group chats, a significant increase from the current limit of 200 people. There's support for Arabic, Turkish, Farsi and Hindi language options, and you can collect both SMS text messages and ChatOn messages from a particular friend in the ChatOn app.

ChatOn is a cross-platform messaging service for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and online, so you don't need a Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet to use it. By the end of last year, it had signed up more than 100 million users.

But ChatOn still lags behind the outrageously popular WhatsApp, which this week saw its more than 465 million users send and receive a record 64 billion messages in one day.

Snapchat is a messaging app that sees your message self-destruct after 10 seconds. Other ephemeral messaging services include FireChat, which is a kind of chat room where none of the messages are saved.