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.
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.
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.
https://www.messenger.com/ also works (requires to be running as desktop version). Still not ideal but works.
Separate messaging app was the best thing they ever did. I’ve not had Facebook installed since.
Same. This will change nothing for me. I refuse their bullshit.
You’re still using their shit, just in a very inconvenient way. In fact, you’re going to their site that contains targeted ads rather than using an ad free app. What a strange hill to die on.
I’d rather have a slight inconvenience of seeing their ads on their website for the few moments I’d need to send a message than having their spyware of an app tracking everything I do all day long.
Not only is that not possible on both Android and iPhone nowadays, that’s a myth that’s never been remotely proven.
Yeah, none of that means they’re tracking everything you do all day long.
I mean… they’re pretty much telling you right upfront that they are. Just sitting there and saying “nuh uh” when the privacy policy is right there to make yourself feel better about using their products is fine, but don’t try to persuade other more privacy savvy individuals otherwise.
Man, this is the single most ignorant comment I’ve seen regarding Facebook. You’ve never wondered how a company that offers a free product makes billions?
If that list didn’t have anything on it except “location”, I’d still say that you’re wrong about them not tracking you. How can you read all of the other things on that list and not realize that selling your data is how they make money?
I have exactly one group that insists on communicating this way. Which is why this isn’t a big inconvenience for me. Your point is well taken, but doesn’t really apply in my case. I’m not a user of the service, which is why it’s so easy for me to refuse to install it, and hopefully I can use this to pressure the group to move to discord or some other means of communication. But if not I will continue to use the desktop site rather than install an app.
I’m in the exact same position as you and take the same approach. It’s a hill I’m getting a mildly stubbed toe on.
https://mbasic.facebook.com/ still works. It’s missing some modern niceties, but usable. That’s what I use for occasional messages.
In my head, i read this URL as https://YaBasic.facebook.com
I thought of a neck beard: “m’basic”
Something like Island/Insular/Shelter might help. I just discovered these apps recently and am currently testing Shelter. It seems to work.
I don’t use fakebook
Who tf uses messenger
Facebook is the main social media in Africa. It’s not a bommer thing there, everyone use it.
Africa makes more sense. Imperialist nations want to influence the entire continent if possible.
USA, China, and Russia are all vying over the global-south like vultures
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Over 3 billion users combined.
So, to answer your question: “Nearly everybody.”
That’s overly dramatic, we’re over 8 billion already… so it’s “Nearly half of everybody” 😜
Everyone in my family 😞
Ask them to go physically to your house if they ever need to tell you something urgent. If they refuse to, good riddance
Oh ya I’ll just tell my grandparents to drive 10-12 hours to get to the other side of the island every time they want to talk to me or see my face
@cnnrduncan @csolisr My grandparents are on Signal 🤷
Incredibly based grandparents
Considering I live 2000 miles away from them and do not want them randomly showing up at my door, no thanks lol.
Same.
They all have phone numbers you can text and they don’t need to install another app or sign up for anything at least. But I understand when they prefer it and you have a fb account anyways.
Sharing media over MMS is a garbage experience. I would need to convince them to use something reasonable, which is a lost cause.
Good luck sending photos or holding a video call with the scant 1100 bits provided by an SMS message…
RCS is our last hope…
AFAIK that unfortunately requires using Google Messages (or moving overseas)
I believe they’ve (Google) been somewhat successful in convincing carriers / 3rd party OS devs like Samsung to start implementing RCS in their own messaging apps. There’s even a 3rd party app on iOS that can use it now.
Definitely not. Devs have been asking for an RCS API in Android for ages, and Google hasn’t added it.
Texting still exists.
Being spied on by facebook, microsoft, and google is not worth the risk to me personally.
Again, who tf uses messenger?
In our country, texting (through the built-in Messenger app) is mostly done as an emergency measure, as most people here use Meta’s other messaging app, WhatsApp.
Again, who tf uses messenger?
The entire nation of Poland
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Wait you’re not an entire nation are you?
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You’d rather be spied on by your carrier… Got it.
Better them than companies who advertise to me directly
I don’t use either one, for very obvious reasons
Fair enough.
Personally, I don’t like using 30 year old technology to communicate. I avoid phone calls and I generally avoid SMS and it’s derivatives.
I work in IT and generally demand more from my messaging apps. I still avoid FB like the plague though.
Carrier can’t spy on you if iMessage and signal!
Which are both not SMS/texting. I know iMessage falls back to SMS if the number doesn’t have iMessage, which is where the carrier spying comes in.
Instead for iMessage, it’s Apple spying, and for signal it’s… Shrug
I trust iMesssge’s e2e and Apple’s privacy a fuckovalot more than anything Facebook has ever made.
That’s fine. I trust Google’s chat app more than SMS, and others, it’s all personal preference. The point of my comment was to demonstrate that no matter what you’re using, someone has your data and is likely selling it.
If you trust apple enough to use their service, all the power to you. If you trust signal/telegram/element/whatever, that’s cool too. But no matter what service you’re using, if it’s a free public service, your data is the product. It is, in all likelihood, being sold to someone somewhere.
It’s a personal choice for how much risk you’re willing to accept on that front. Bluntly, I don’t think anyone should trust FB or any of suckerberg’s properties. Everyone else is varying levels of shit. Some much worse than others… The decisions made beyond that point are personal.
And frankly, if someone almost exclusively uses FB messenger, it says to me that they don’t give any shits about their data or what happens to it. Everything else, meh. There’s good and bad from most companies, some are doing better (signal, as an example, seems to be doing pretty good), others, not so great… Meh.
Living in western Europe I would have said no one, but in most of central and eastern Europe is strictly necessary to reach anyone.
Only the stupidest of humanity.
Well, there goes central Europe
Australians apparently. That’s what my cousins said as the explanation for why their family chat was on Facebook.
Messenger is the most popular messaging app in Australia by far. #2 is Apple/Facetime (which is about equal with WhatsApp in terms of market share) but there’s a huge gap between #1 and #2.
At least a billion people
Better idea don’t install messenger at all
Probably time to bridge from XMPP then
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.
Most phones can be unlocked provided you own it. Easier than you might think!
My next phone will be a pixel so I can flash grapheneOS on it. I don’t think my Snapdragon S21 can run custom firmware without triggering Samsung Knox though
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
If I can get a custom ROM to work on my current phone, I’m all for it! I was looking at specific unlocked phone brands because some custom ROMS are optimized for that hardware.
Check out the XDA Forums section for your carrier’s version of whatever model of phone you have. Not all carriers make it trivial (or even possible) to unlock the bootloader and flash custom recovery images, but if it’s possible then someone there has certainly done it.
Thank you for this!
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?
This could be true of basically any Android phone on specific carriers, at least in the US.
I guess I’ll always stick with the Pixel Pro then.
Sony for one. My Xperia One III (a fucking $1300 or whatever flagship) comes with a completely uninstallable Facebook apk
Just gonna leave this here: https://www.signal.org/
Well, family at least is going to be willing to switch to signal…
How will it affect me? Well! It won’t because I dont use facebook. Lol
How will it affect me? Well! It won’t because I don’t use Android. Lol
Use slimsocial to reply to those contacts that still insist to use that messaging app and tell them that you aren’t reachable over there anymore, ghost any subsequent message
Interesting, I didn’t know about this
So now people relying on the Lite variants will not be able to chat anymore, as Facebook Lite requires Messenger Lite a little time after it got released?
I wish someone discontinued Meta
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Too bad Threads hasn’t entered the Fediverse, things could’ve been easier.
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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.
and I don’t know how to separate from that.
Take screenshots, load them all into a folder and use some kind of gallery widget or app to show you one daily.
I think I’ve seen calendars that will show you an image a day but I don’t know how well you can set images to certain days, etc.
All you are saying is its too convenient for you to stop using it. What makes it less convenient is learning about alternative ways to meet the same ends.
You’ll find like a lot of others that giving up control to Facebook doesn’t necessarily equate to the most convenient tool
weird… i use Facebook Lite and Messenger lite prompted me to continue my conversation there
I thought Facebook lite didn’t include messenger features? If they’re bundling it all into one lite app, I’d actually say that’s a GOOD thing.
I don’t want to use Facebook on my phone. I just need to talk to people on there that refuse to use other apps.
Nope.
It’ll die.
We’re all on another app anyway.
