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Facebook Nixes Access To Chats Outside Of Messenger Walled Garden (arstechnica.co.uk)
Tom Mendelsohn, reporting for Ars Technica: Some smartphone users of Facebook are reporting that they're no longer able to access their messages from the mobile site, and that they're being directed towards the free content ad network's dedicated Messenger app. Users of the regular Facebook mobile app were shunted over to Facebook Messenger to access their chats a while ago. Now, folk who access the service on their phone's Web browsers, or via third-party apps such as Tinfoil or Metal, are beginning to find that they can no longer view their messages. Complaints are popping up from users who are being told by Facebook that "your conversations are moving to Messenger." Some Android users are even finding themselves automatically redirected to the download link on the Google Play store when they try and view their messages on the mobile site.
Because email isn't IM?
You use a free service you have to accept their structure and design. Seriously, I'm tired of all the bitching about Facebook, don't like it, don't use it.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Assuming you want to use Facebook Messenger, why wouldn't you want to just use the app? I can certainly understand not wanting to use Facebook Messenger (or not wanting to use Facebook at all), but why a strong preference for using messenger through a mobile browser?
You're boring
Get through your heads...
APP steal information
Fackbook wants all your information
Facebook APP is the worst of both.
So you want to send a message, do not use Facebook.
Seriously, so effin' what -- I really don't get what difference it makes if they decided to move messages to an app.
Facebook's problem is a privacy problem. A couple of years back I started an anonymous facebook account as a public diary, only to find that a friend on facebook found about it because it was somehow visible from my other account without my full understanding. The same goes to 'likes' and 'comments' on external posts which are visible to your friends' newsfeed by default.
These are some very serious privacy issues, and their seriousness comes from the fact that its entirely your responsibility to understand how facebook will share your data, you probably can't hold FB accountable to any of this.
But moving messages to a seemingly harmless app -- not a big deal.
block all of facebook with the hosts file
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
When it installing Messenger, it "needs" access to
* Identity
* Contacts
* Location
* SMS
* Phone
* Media/Photos
* Camera
* Microphone
* Wifi connection info
* Device and call info
Basically, EVERY bit of sensitive data on my phone. There was a recent radio broadcast where they were able to determine that FB was checking your location multiple times per second (whether or not you were using the app).
So yeah, no f'ing way that PoS app is getting installed on my device.
I would want to setup messenger with a message that replies 'I don't use messenger, so i am not going to get your message. please contact me some other way.'
Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, they all tried to eliminate competitors by disallowing using competing messaging systems together with theirs.
In other words, FB is working on making itself as obsolete as these market leaders once were. Took them shorter than I gave them, actually.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You're boring too.
Because Messenger (as a service) is the only way I get messages from some people. I either stop talking to those people, piss those people off by constantly cajoling them into switching services, or just talk to them the way they want to talk to me.
But Messenger (as an app) is a hateful piece of programming. I haven't had the battery issues others do, but it consumes too much memory, and causes other parts of my phone to misbehave (camera, etc.) so I'm happier not using it.
Why not just use email?
It has none of these problems, and far more benefits.
Because email has it's own problems. Mainly spam and pseudo-spam. I completely abandoned email a couple years ago. I still have an email address but the only thing I use it for is to search for a message that someone has told me via IM/text/phone that they sent me. If someone sends me an email message without notifying me via some other method that they are sending it to me then there is a 90+% probability that I won't read it.
That being said, I also uninstalled facebook messenger from my phone because I don't want to be notified at 2am that someone sent me a message. People are generally smart enough to not have 2am phone calls or texts but facebook messenger not so much.
I am one of those people who use facebook via the web browser on my phone and not allowing messenger via the web browser will not get me to install messenger but rather will just get me to use facebook less.
We need it to ensure free speech and equality, please vote for publicly funded social networks.
Don't let scummy companies run executable code on your devices.
You get to be the crop.
What is with the random reference of Facebook as "free content ad network"?
Lose access to yet another message service or let Facebook's shitty apps waste my battery, slow my phone down, and piss all over my permissions.
Man, I just don't know.
Log in or piss off.
I'll fake the user agent and use the desktop site. On a tablet it's ok.
The point where Facebook forces me to install software on my phone that drains my battery is the point where I stop using Facebook messenger entirely. Obnoxious but typical. I don't know why anyone is surprised at anything they do after their "real name" policy that actually puts LGBT people and abuse victims in physical danger.
You can still request desktop site and continue to use chat in web.
Screw FB! Use telegram.
Mobile sites tend to be far more secure for users than social apps (you can say "privacy" instead if you want, though many people don't understand the difference). Most social apps, like this one, want total ownership of your phone - and therefore they own you. They demand access to your microphone, camera, location, contact list, and everything else. Big Brother never got so much data. In contrast, the websites don't get access to all that stuff. Facebook doesn't pay me enough to completely give up all my privacy.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
This is wonderful news! Anything to make Facebook fade into oblivion faster is a a good thing.
If you're a faecesbook user you're a moron who has no understanding of privacy and likes being a sheeple, corporate slave. You have no soul, no independent mind and you are part of the problem. You're the type of person who says "I was only obeying orders".
"But my friends need to contact me on faecesbook" - Get some better friends.
"But my family need to contact me on faecesbook" - Get a better family.
faecesbook - For morons, by evil morons.
Something something "internet.org" something "basics" something something.
Yadda network effect yadda yadda.
meh,
*settings*
*request desktop site*
Problem solved.
Don't say you weren't warned.
Long ago, the Facebook app wanted new permissions like access to my contacts. I didn't think they should have it, so I still don't allow the update.
Turns out I'm using Facebook version 3.9 from 2013 on my mobile (Moto Maxx/Droid Turbo). I ripped the apk with AirDroid from my older phone and installed on the new one.
The app has the messenger inside itself, instead of an independent app. With time, it stopped working and popped a message to download the independent app, until I found a guy which made an app to unblock the messenger inside my old app.
Battery life is great, I don't even see Facebook on the battery manager (I use it very few times a day).
Why not use any number of alternatives that aren't Facebook? FB Messenger is probably the last resort for me.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I get maybe 2 or 3 spams a week at most that make it through my filters.
Same deal... every attempt to use the message functionality tried to pop up the Google Play Store and direct me to their app. I already choose to use the website instead of their app, and now they want to have two apps spying on me. No thanks. Instead I just stopped using Facebook. It's pretty much full of religious and political garbage at this point anyway. This was just the final straw. It's nice keeping tabs on some old friends, but the tradeoffs to use FB the way 'they' want it used are too much.
For those of you who don't want to leave the browser, messenger.com will detect you're on mobile, but with "Request Desktop site" won't force you to the stores and actually be useful. Google also has Hangouts with the similar behavior: will "force" you Google Play instead, will allow usage with the toggle. They really want to force the un-savvy user to them low rated (sub-4), seriously dubious UX apps, probably so they get more ratings from those "either 5 or 1 stars" type of users, and will have some biased way of disregarding the 1 stars thus the average end result is beneficial to the apps.
Screw telegram, use line.
I'm like, so shocked that Facebook would use its influence and power to lock its users into its own ecosystem!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Our biggest mistake was creating the United States of America.
Eat the rich.
Is there a way to disable Messages on your account, so no one can message you? That'd be my inclination if I have to use their app. (Also one of the people who found their battery life increase significantly without FB apps on their phone.)
Or just turn off notifications like most apps allow.
Gmail spam filters work's so well these days
Today I learned you can have chats on Facebook.
remember XMPP?
Before I quit the facebook, there were people who, no matter how many times I asked them not to use FB messsages to contact me (people who have my cell phone number to text), simply continued to use FB.
The left's gotten pretty blatant with its radicalism over the last few years.
1. convince reader to loath himself, his cultural background, and the society he lives in. check
2. Use of the word 'imperialism.' check
3. broad accusations of bigotry. check
The soviet union's gone, btw, and china's far too interested in manipulating markets to be communist (though they kept the maoist/stalinist 'benevolent' authoritarian act going). That leaves north korea as the only truly communist country left. Now that place IS a shithole.
Today the worst political trends in the west can be traced right back to the authoritarian leanings of cold war era socialism.
I've used XMPP in the past, but since Facebook Chat disabled XMPP support and I don't wat to use theirs IM, I've closed my account there (used FB just to use the chat to talk to family members...)
It's been like that for over a year now on iOS. It's just another reason I am considering closing my Facebook account entirely. Everytime I log in to the site it seems like they've pulled some new crap to prevent me from seeing posts in chronological order. Having to constantly choose Most Recent is annoying enough but now they force posts to the top of the list that don't belong.
Given how facebook tracks people who don't even have a facebook login and aren't even on the site, either.
Are you saying you're only allowed to bitch about that if you're logged in and on facebook.com right now?
Does requesting the desktop version of the page (instead of staying on the mobile version) in your browser still allow you to check messages, send/reply to messages?
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
If you're persistent you can still get to your messages using the mobile browser version. It's a pain in the bass, but you can. Keep going back to the browser tab, close the ad, then go back, close the ad again, then go back and tap on which message you want to read. Or check "Request desktop site" in browser settings.
I checked Request Desktop Site on my Nexus 6 and my ability to message on FB from my phone returned.
Problem solved. Move along.
( and yes i agree the apps are a battery sucking POS )
Federated jabber is the right answer, but its a ghost town... Have to get all your 'contacts' to use it. I tried. Good luck.
It's suitable for business use (I'm setting up a ejjaberd.im server on my work, using data from Active Directory for authentication and groups/shared rosters :P)
In your mobile browser login to the normal web site instead of the mobile one. Use the "Request desktop site" or equivalent option of your mobile browser.
You'll have access to the chat and messenging functionalitiies, problem solved.
on a company's website along with where you are, who with, who you know, what you do, what they do, where and when it all happens etc...
And wonder later oh damn, I can't access my shit but the gov can?
dabbbft
I get maybe 2 or 3 spams a week at most that make it through my filters.
It's not the real spam as much as the psuedo-spam. Every single website, grocery store, credit card, etc... requires you to confirm your account with an email address and then each of these sites send you 2-3 emails per week. You've technically opted in but really only wanted a password not constant irrelevant updates. After a while, you have several hundred of these and many of them require you to remember your password and log into their site to unsubscribe. My postal mail is the same way. I have all my bills autodebited but they still send me a letter every month telling me that they autodebited plus random crap that goes straight in he trash. My electric company, my grocery store, and even Geico sends out a "magazine" each month. Does anyone actually read the geico magazine? I have something in my mailbox every day but probably only receive 1 letter a month that is important if that.
Because email isn't IM?
Unless you're logged in 24/7, Facebook Messenger (FM) via a browser isn't IM either.
The main advantage for FM is lack of spam -- at the cost of surveillance.
Their stupid web page still tries to force you to download their messenger app, but if you set Chrome to request the desktop site, it will let you see your messages. At least it did yesterday.