I have not found any news article on this on a whim. Because my friends and family, I need to use Facebook Messenger, and Messenger Lite was a OK client - lightweight, no unnecessary features, etc., compared to the regular Messenger app.
Now I’m a little torn, having a Meta app on my phone is already bad, but having to downgrade to the bloated Messenger app? Not sure I will make a change. What are your thoughts?
Ever since Facebook forced the separate Messenger app, I’ve refused to install it. Instead, when I see a message notification, I pop into a browser, head to Facebook.com and push the desktop version. While it’s clunky, I’ve never had to download Messenger.
https://mbasic.facebook.com/ still works. It’s missing some modern niceties, but usable. That’s what I use for occasional messages.
Why? I mean it’s much better to have the messenger app without all the facebook BS.
Its very easy to disregard facebook in 2023, but Messenger is still one of the more prominent messaging app.
Same here. I wish Disa messenger app was maintained as it was my one stop shop for a few messenger apps.
I hate to say this, but Facebook Messenger is one of the most fully featured messaging apps. It has its own internal messaging standard that offers iMessage like features between Facebook users, and it also is one of the better SMS apps out there.
I can see why they make it its own app, it’s supposed to replace other messaging apps.
https://www.messenger.com/ also works (requires to be running as desktop version). Still not ideal but works.
Is their messenger still a 150 MB monster that gets updated twice a day?
No… I disabled the auto updates.
Yes, and they constantly change how parts of the UI work, most often getting more in the way of efficient actual messaging… It’s really bad.
They cut the size down to 30 MB on iOS in 2019, but they’re back to 110 since (on Android, it’s 60 MB).
EDIT: In terms of updates, they are pretty stable at one update a week on both systems.
I’ll die before I install Facebook Messenger
Same. Just have to hold out until the EU makes all messaging apps cross+operable and then I’ll be able to talk to everyone again.
Careful. They could be listening.
I hope they are.
Hey Facebook, eat a bag of dicks!
Just gonna leave this here: https://www.signal.org/
Well, family at least is going to be willing to switch to signal…
Just delete every meta/fb app. There are plenty of alternatives now. They will never love you.
If people are still playing within meta’s walls they are lost and won’t be leaving anytime soon.
But all my friends are on there! M-m-my followers!!!
They didn’t miss the boat, they straight up ignored it. Nothing has changed so why should their poorly reasoned decision?
Here’s an idea. Stop using FB.
I get it, your boomer parents/grandparents don’t know how to use anything else… But you can show them. It’s very similar and doesn’t suck as much.
I understand this move from FB too… Rather than maintain two apps, that both do the same thing, just maintain one. However, without the ability to turn off all the bloat and crap in the one app to make it very similar to the other, I don’t see that being viable for many, and I’m sure they don’t let you do that, so, ha ha, get fucked.
Anyways, Facebook is a cancer.
All of my international friends use Facebook Messenger.
e-mail is an alternative, yes, but to put obstacles to how can you be contacted is how you lose touch with each other.
If I’m always going to where my friends are, and they never come to where I am, are they really my friends?
These are the questions I constantly mull over to try to figure out. It’s extremely important to me that me and my friends are on equal footing, we’re both partners in the friendship, neither is following the other’s lead. I’ve lost many friends by simply not being the first person to send a message.
To me, I’d rather have fewer friends who have me as an active part of their life, versus a lot of friends I’m constantly making concessions for that wouldn’t do the same for me.
With all that said, I’m not you and I have no control over your choices. Do what you will.
Family is not the problem, everyone else is.
This sucks.
Can’t ditch it completely due to family, but got a few more contacts over on Signal after this announcement.
I can’t uninstall the Facebook app from my phone (not unless I use ADB), so it’s disabled. I uninstalled Messenger. I pinned a post on my FB page that said if people needed to contact me they can email me or text me. I have posted about why folks should leave these platforms until I am blue in the face. If they want to make the switch, they will. If they want to reach out, they will.
Eventually, I want to get an unlocked phone, load a custom ROM, and tell the big platforms to fuck off. I resent how difficult they have made that, and I resent how complacent we have become because of it.
Your phone came with Facebook installed and you can’t uninstall it? Fucking gross! Which phone is that so I know to never buy it?
Sony for one. My Xperia One III (a fucking $1300 or whatever flagship) comes with a completely uninstallable Facebook apk
This could be true of basically any Android phone on specific carriers, at least in the US.
Most phones can be unlocked provided you own it. Easier than you might think!
Carrier unlocked and oem bootloader unlocking are two very different things.
In canada, all phones must now be free of carrier locks, but bootloader unlocking is a pain. The us version of my current phone can be oem unlocked.
Mine can’t.
So, i use a lot of adb/shizuku
Or install an app called Metal.
It’s a wrapper for the mobile webpage with all the intrusive permissions disabled by default.
I just looked for this app and it looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2018. Am I wrong?
On the play store page I got the message “not available on your device, this app has been designed for an older version of Android”, not updated since June 2018 and I can’t find it anywhere else, seems you’re not
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I wish someone discontinued Meta
Nope.
It’ll die.
We’re all on another app anyway.
Not incredibly surprising given how little it’s been updated and how things like clicking links doesn’t work. Definitely exhausted by how aggressively things are just getting worse now.
Yeah, both Messenger Lite and Facebook Lite are fucked. Post a photo or video on Facebook Lite and it’s guaranteed to be blurry piece of shit. If it’s shot horizontal, it’s going to be low-res vertical with letterboxing on the top and bottom. I have to hop on the main app just to post a discernable video for my family.
If I didn’t live on the other side of the continent and Facebook were my only real lifeline to my friends and family, I wouldn’t use it at all anymore. But now there’s this sunken-cost fallacy shit on top of it all, and how I get daily memories from the deceased like my father and grandmother. “Hope you’re having fun in Canada, love you, Gram”. Some of these messages are still applicable today, and I don’t know how to separate from that.
Something like Island/Insular/Shelter might help. I just discovered these apps recently and am currently testing Shelter. It seems to work.
Why still use Facebook when we have the Internet?
Marketplace became the defacto replacement for craigslist in my area 😔
It’s the only reason I use it and, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s really well done/seamless/painless to use. Literally the only good think on FB (until they inevitably ruin it too). Has fantastic consumer protections.
In many countries it’s the default communication app
Old people are there, some we care about, some have passed away…
There are a few decent communities out there too. Not many, but a few.
The only and I say the only good thing I can say about Facebook Messenger is… umm…
Can somebody name at least one thing? Really, this app is shit but we must find one at least.
Yes, people using it as the main messaging app is still preferable to the situation in the US where people on different mobile platforms can’t message each other without bullshit compatibility issues and bubble colors.
At least here it doesn’t matter what platform you’re on - including desktops and the web - and as a result nobody cares.
Of course, the same is true for almost every other messaging service too, and there are better ones out there.
Facebook Messenger is probably the closest thing to a modern Yellow Pages as we have. Not everybody is on there, but most people are - even if they haven’t checked their profile in years. With the fall of landlines, it can be the easiest (or only) way to find/contact someone - especially if you’re a GenX or early Millennial because we have all dropped out landlines, but we created most of our social connections before any other messaging service existed. Heck, almost none of the people I knew from college in the 90s even had an email address that they stuck with (assuming I actually had email logs going back thirty years). It’s nice that so many message services exist, but most have no way to “look someone up” the way it’s possible to do on something like messenger/fb. (admittedly - it’s both good and bad)
I suppose there’s a chance that LinkedIn is the other major database of real names out there; I’ve never tried it for locating people.
weird… i use Facebook Lite and Messenger lite prompted me to continue my conversation there
