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Facebook Releases Messenger Lite For People On Slower Networks and With Old and Basic Android Phones (cnet.com)
Facebook has launched a slimmed-down version of its popular Messenger app in an effort to appeal to its users in countries with slower internet access. The app is called Messenger Lite, and it is also aimed at users who have basic Android smartphones. From a CNET article: Facebook Messenger Lite takes up a much smaller amount of a phone's storage --just 10 megabytes -- than the full-fat app that most users have installed on their phones, and it has been pared back so that it runs nippily over slower than average network speeds. It is the companion app to Facebook Lite, a stripped-down version of the social network, also for old Android phones, launched in 2015. The app's launch is one cog in the wheel of Facebook's strategy to make the social network and the internet as a whole more accessible to users in the developing world. One of Facebook's stated aims is to bring the next 3 billion people online and it has a number of initiatives to that end, including internet.org, Free Basics and its Lite apps.
Yes, cause that is exactly why grandma doesn't use Facebook.
On the other hand, I'd wager that the personal information stealing is what really sucks up the bandwidth when using Facebook. Has that part been remedied as well? No?
One of Facebook's stated aims is to bring the next 3 billion people online
One of Facebook's implicit aims is to line up the next 3 billion suckers for privacy invasion, data mining, and targeted advertising. FTFY.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
What was wrong with Facebook messaging being part of the main FB app, like it used to be?
It's time to get a Facebook account now that those of us in the US can use Messenger.
Oh, happy day!
tomas@rasputin:~$ ls -lh /usr/bin/mutt-org /usr/bin/mutt-org
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 886K Nov 29 2014
'Nuff said.
for people who hate themselves.
They should push ads for antidepressants.
-linux... they can't *give* that shit away.
I have a high end phone, I was dissatisfied with the Facebook app, so I tried Facebook Lite. And it doesn't even start! All I get to see is the splash screen.
Very lightweight indeed. If this is the way they're going...
How about just letting people use the browser to check their facebook messages instead of detecting they're on a mobile device and blocking them from checking their messages to try and force them to install their crappy app? I've found a workaround to do it, but it's cludgy. STOP BLOCKING THE BROWSER FROM CHECKING MESSAGES! Is that so hard Facebook? Nobody wants your crappy app. Not even the lite version.
One thing Messenger Lite won't be able to do is make voice calls, in this first version at least. As a huge growth area for Facebook -- 300 million people use Messenger for voice calling -- it is a feature Chudnovsky is "definitely" looking at adding eventually. "People want to use the same kind of services they use everywhere else, but it definitely requires different types of tech."
If you could do voice calls over your data network, wouldn't you just use the full version of the app instead of the lite?
I also love that it's only available to
people in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela, and is set to come to other countries later.
So if you hate the full version sucking your battery dry too bad, you can't use the better one.
Usually I sell them, this one is free: I found a way how you could make it so that it needs 0 extra MBs.
Let people access their messages with the browsers they have already installed, it doesn't get more lightweight than that!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does it have to touch my nipple to send nipply messages? or does it alert me by playing with my nipples? Either way, I am in.
"Great".
Now rename the original app to "Facebook Messenger Monstrously Oversized", the new app to "Facebook Messenger".
Now rename the original Facebook app to "Facebook Monstrously Oversized", the light app to "Facebook"
Now re-integrate "Facebook Messenger" with "Facebook".
Things are now again as they were and should be.
But it still can be better
Ditch the whole thing and tell people to use the mobile web version, which will be seriously maintained from now on.
Incompetent F***book swine. My phone was never meant to solely run your bulky, obese shit apps.
Sure, makes perfect sense: You want to surveil and log the conversations of as many people as you can, so release a version that works better on older phones. Then you can poke your little brown noses into more people's business! Your NSA/CIA/FBI masters will reward you, Failbook.
WHY ARE YOU STILL USING FACEBOOK???
Every phone should have a browser. Why the hell don't these companies stop with the apps and create web apps for mobile browsers?
...although I guess the separate app has more features. If not it would be pointless.
I chose to use the Lite version since the "fat" Facebook app was over 100 MB and I'm always running out of space on the apps partition.
Not all iPhone users have the latest device either. Some of us get hand-me-down phones. I'm still on iPhone 4, for example. And I have a perfectly good iPhone 3GS in a drawer that could be used for Facebook Messenger Lite too.
I immediately wanted to install this to replace the behemoth that is the real Messenger; after diving through the various links (because why would you bother to link the source?), I found this:
Messenger Lite is starting to roll out to people in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela. Look for Messenger Lite in other countries in the coming months.
So I suspect it might not come to "western" regions; I've seen this before with some of the 'basic' versions of apps.
FWIW I have a Nexus 4, maybe 3 years old, which now feels like a cheap, basic smartphone. Most of those big fat apps like FB Messenger run like an absolute dog. I am not sure why; I think it's a combination of the IO speed of the disk starting to suck plus the fact that I have full encryption on (IIRC the Nexus 5+ series have dedicated hardware that deals more gracefully with full encryption on the device).
I'm thinking, Facebook Massager Lite will make many lonely women happy, even if it is single-speed as the name suggests.
What kind of garbage is that, why did android application size creep so much, even basic stuff now wastes like 15mb.
I don't think I've updated any application in 3 years because of that, and I've had to revert to the original version of the play store because newer version don't even show apk size.
Because a browser app can't run in the background, run on startup, suck your contacts lists off your phone, force you to provide your location as soon as you load it, etc. etc. etc.
Browsers have security. Apps have free reign. Now question why you would want to run Facebook as an app rather than (as I do) access it in "Desktop Site" mode inside the Chrome I already have (which gives you message access but is a pain in the butt to navigate).
I have an Othello/Reversi program on my phone, the AI beats me about half the time on one of the harder (but not hardest) settings, and it's nowhere near 10MB. There are hundreds of useful Android apps that are around 100-300 KB, the "lite" version of Facebook using 20x more than an IRC Client (AndChat-535K) is ridiculous.
Really?
Isn't it quite a marketing coup to get folks to think of these devices as a non-threatening "telephone" when they are actually treacherous hand-held computers utterly controlled by someone else?
I'll be sure to avoid this like the Plague, just like your more full-featured surveillance platform.
I still remember when the entire OS including apps would have taken less then that..
Maybe it wouldn't be necessary to create a "Lite" version if their main app combo (messenger + facebook apps) didn't take 3/4 of a friggin GIGABYTE.
I can't even fathom what kind of nimrods Zuckerberg hires, but it is certainly strong evidence against his position that self-taught developers are just as good those from degree-awarding institutions.
I have a BBQ10 (long story short, I NEED the physical keyboard, is not a matter of preference).
Even though I kinda-sorta still get security updates for the BaseOS, FaceBook (and WhatsApp) abandoned the platform, and left behind ha mobile website wraped as an app.
Since BB10 runs android, and since this is planned for older android, as soon as 10.3.3 lands, I will sideload the APKs, and let you know how this behaves. Ditto for FaceBook lite, and WhatsApp.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
Really? The current version of Tinfoil crashes when opening the messages link in Facebook. Some guy launched a workaround to avoid crashes. In its latest 2.0 version it is a fork of Tinfoil, but it is not in F-Droid.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
All my Facebook messages disappeared from my computer. I did not delete or archive any. The collection is 5 yrs. of data that I need. When I googled Facebook I read a zillion complaints from people with the same issue and no resolve by Facebook. I've sent e-mails, messages to Facebook, no response. I tried another computer, a different browser & downloaded my facebook backup for messages. I'm told my messages are on one of their serves and they don't know why this is happening. I contacted the people who have sent me messages & they say my messages are still there at their end. Any suggestions?
So, how does this beat just simply saving "m.facebook.com" as a bookmark shortcut icon?