Facebook is lying to you about needing its messenger app
facebook mobile · 2 comments · 250 words · read ~1,194 times.
Like many people, I can't be bothered using Facebook's mobile app. I live my life in the browser and don't need a battery-hungry, always listening, contact stealing app notifying me every five minutes.
I check Facebook Messages when I want. If it's urgent, there are many better ways to contact me than Messenger.
Until recently, all was well in the world. I happily used Facebook's mobile web site. Then this happened.
That, frankly, is bullshit. Why do I need an app to display messages? Are Facebook's coders so incompetent that they can't make mobile chat work?
No.
There is a mobile web version of messenger. And I'm going to show you how to get to it!
I use the FaceSlim app for Android. Literally, all it does is open an isolated web browser which loads the Facebook mobile site. No battery drain, no invasive permissions, just good ol' HTML.
In response to Facebook's hostility towards its own users, the FaceSlim developer added an option to load the mobile version of messenger from within the browser.
So there you have it. If you want the mobile web version of Facebook Messenger, use the FaceSlim app for Android. And if you need to contact me urgently, use Signal!
You could just use the Facebook Light application. It's surprisingly light, and has built in features for everything you've come to expect from facebook. It was developed for developing countries where bandwidth and storage can both be scarce/expensive...
Terence Eden says:
Sadly the Light application (and Facebook Zero) are only available in specific countries.