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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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”
https://www.messenger.com/ also works (requires to be running as desktop version). Still not ideal but works.
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.
Same here. I wish Disa messenger app was maintained as it was my one stop shop for a few messenger apps.
Is their messenger still a 150 MB monster that gets updated twice a day?
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.
Android 13 here, Messenger is 148mb, last update 11 days ago
160mb on android.
I think the Facebook Lite app includes messaging too.
No… I disabled the auto updates.
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!
A whole bag of them!
And they put a notification on your phone about it that you can’t remove… this infuriates me more than it should
You’re right, I did not even notice the persistent notification! What a unnecessarily annoying move. This deserved an early bird uninstall for me…
Yeah I uninstalled as soon as I realised it was a persistent notification. Fuck that.
At least on my phone I could swipe the notification a bit to the left to reveal the cog, “disable notifications”, and disable the “standard” category of notifications.
In other news, there’s no way in hell I’m installing the full app. People texting me there will just have to wait until I’m by a computer.
Yes, but that is the same notification category as your default one for messages, so disabling it will result in no message notifications at all.
Yeah I just turned off every notification from Messenger Lite after seeing that. Next month I might just uninstall it completely, or opt for the Matrix bridge.
Another reason my phone is rooted. I want to have the final say in whether I can remove a notification or not on my phone.
I’m also on the uninstall boat with y’all, for this reason. Lucky me, I haven’t used messenger in a year so when I saw the notification didn’t hesitate. Haven’t logged on FB in years so I doubt anyone will try to reach me there.
I swear my battery life improved after I uninstalled messenger for a while and got worse after reinstalling recently.
I wouldn’t have installed it except I was in the process of getting back in touch with a few old friends. Was totally worth it for that.
I’m on the same page. I would prefer not having those apps installed or even an account, but my friends are more worth to me than my IT ideals.
It’s too bad that your friendship isn’t more important than ten minutes of inconvenience for them to install a different app or to give you their actual phone number.
I find that you’re making a lot of assumptions on my friendships based on my 4 lines comment.
I do chat with my friends via SMS or phone cause I indeed have their number. But you can’t deny that SMS for group chats is pretty gruesome.
Based on that, everybody is used to those popular chat apps and have their other group chats on them. Why would I make them change when they work for what’s intended? Privacy is the best argument, but they may not all care enough to not find it bothering. So I don’t bother ¯_(ツ)_/¯
They dont work for what’s intended. Its an illusion to pull money from your content and your potential ad revenue.
Thats not getting into any of the other sociological effects of a huge amount of people getting their daily news from Facebook message headlines.
Live and let live
It’s exactly what social media platforms, particularly Facebook, want. They want you to feel locked in because your friends are there
I don’t know why people don’t just use more SMS. You don’t need all the fancy bells and whistles, it shouldn’t change the conversation you’re having, especially with the gradual rollout of rich messages, and it has a wider audience than Facebook will ever have. More people have SMS than have Facebook
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Everyone outside of the U.S. almost assuredly still has SMS capabilities, it’s just not common utilized because everyone is already on WhatsApp or Telegram. It’s where their friends are, locking them into the ecosystem, which is exactly what I just said. And I would be willing to wager the only reason WhatsApp really got huge was because SMS hasn’t always been free to use and may still not be free in some countries and with some plans.
Telegram, Signal and WhatsApp are fine, as for privacy how exactly are SMS better?
I wasn’t speaking to privacy specifically, but where all your friends are.
If you want privacy, then you shouldn’t be using Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp anyway, considering both are owned by Meta and their privacy track record is shaky at best.
Signal is a great choice, but we get back to the main point where not everyone is on Signal, and once you are on Signal you’re locked in to using Signal and must have their app to participate in the conversation.
My point wasn’t that SMS is better, but it’s simpler and more widely available and doesn’t require a standalone application to use.
Ideally we would use an open standard like the Matrix standard to communicate, that way you can download whatever application you want and have all the privacy you could ever desire, but not have to download some random messaging application just to catch up from Gary from primary school
I wish matrix would catch on too. Basically every non US app is still tied to a damn phone number for auth, so it’s not better than sms for mobility anyway.
I’m not on board with sms being a better service in general, but it’s kind of difficult to argue that other messaging services are superior when sms is the only one designed to be accessible without internet access.
I’ve found the same thing with the IG and FB apps which is why I don’t use them. I stick to the mobile web versions but they have made it difficult to message from the android mobile web without extra steps like desktop mode. Even then there can be missing functionality.
There was also an article earlier this year where they were purposely “testing” the apps that forcibly drained some user batteries quickly without a care for the actual users affected. Since I’m often using my phone for navigation in the woods I want as much battery life as possible please.
Anyways if it wasn’t for older friends and family members I would no longer be using FB.
People always say “family and friends…” but, just hear me out, what if you don’t need to be in constant contact with people you would have naturally moved on from?
Certainly a argument can be made for this. For me it is the extended family and contacts from hobbies /sports. Without FB they would have completely faded out of my life. This low level method maintains a loose family connections once maintained by the senior family members that have long since passed. As for the others yes completely disappear from your life…
Of course it did. They’re tracking everything you do, and everywhere you go, even when the app isn’t running. Don’t believe me? Install the Duck Duck Go browser and enable App Tracking Protection. You will be shocked by the amount of shit so many apps track in the background, but Facebook is one of the worst.
Just gonna leave this here: https://www.signal.org/
Well, family at least is going to be willing to switch to signal…
You can use Beeper to replace all your communication apps. That way you only have to install one app, and you don’t have to have Meta installed.
It sounds like a too good to be true situation. Definitely an interesting concept though. Sounds like they use remote servers to connect to the third-party apps using your credentials and then transcribe the messages using the Matrix protocol to the app. Source here and snippet below
Beeper consists of two main components:
- A client app that runs on your devices.
- A web service run by Beeper.
… Beeper’s web service consists of a Matrix homeserver and infrastructure to run open source bridges that connect to 15 different chat networks.
Currently free but also will be a Plus version eventually rolling out, according to the FAQ
For now, everyone has access to all the features of Beeper Plus for free. At some point in 2023, we will begin charging $5-10 per month for Beeper Plus.
Also, no humor is lost on the fact that it is dangerously close to Wuph from The Office…
I signed up for beeper, but realized you can self host a matrix server that uses the same bridges between these chat services.
I was skeptical at first, but it’s been super solid and refreshing to have a single chat app for everything.
How did you do that? I’d love to set something like that up. I keep seeing Matrix mentioned everywhere, but I haven’t looked into it to see exactly what it is.
@Unsustainable @bananahammock @technology Matrix is a protocol for real time communication. Several companies build products using this protocol, including Elemental, Beeper and Rocket Chat.
This is similar to how ActivityPub is a protocol for federated social media. Many projects are built using ActivityPub, including Mastodon, PixelFed, and Lemmy.
@Unsustainable @bananahammock @technology
A “Matrix Bridge” is a computer program that connects to an arbitrary service and presents it as Matrix service. You can connect to that Matrix service with any Matrix client.
For example, this code connects LinkedIn messages to Matrix: https://github.com/beeper/linkedin
Beeper runs Matrix bridges for you as a service. If you don’t want to use that service, you can self-host the bridges.
I signed up for this month’s ago and I’m still not in. Every time I log into the app to check my waitlist, I’m some random number in the 3000s, and not always lower than last time. Why is this do you know?
If you’re technically savvy, it looks like you could self-host the application. https://github.com/beeper/self-host
This is what I did, took a bit to get it configured but works great once your up and running.
How long have you been running it so far? Any issues?
A few months for the Facebook and Instagram bridges and I just setup the Google messages Bridge last week.
I’ve never heard of beeper, but it sounds pretty inaccessible from what your saying. Is there something that makes it worth it? Or is it just another messaging app that nobody I need to speak with is using?
I believe Beeper is Matrix under the hood. They have just made it more accessible with a new interface and pre-installed bridges.
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Just signed up myself, about 40k in line it seems. Sounds like reinventing Trillian/Gaim/Pidgin/etc…
It’s a modern take on the Pidgin concept. Pidgin ran locally on one computer and didn’t sync anything between any of your other Pidgin installs. Also, your login details for every account were usually in plaintext on disk. In practice, it feels
Beeper (really Matrix + bridges) is a network service that you can access with a browser, mobile app, whatever.
I signed up when it was first announced over a year ago. As of a couple months ago I still hadn’t gotten approved. I signed up again and within a couple days I got approved. You should try signing up again.
This sucks.
Can’t ditch it completely due to family, but got a few more contacts over on Signal after this announcement.
Just log in to Facebook on desktop every couple of days. If they want speedy responses, they will know yto try an aternative medium.
I wish someone discontinued Meta
Too bad Threads hasn’t entered the Fediverse, things could’ve been easier.
Make Meta Omega.
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?
Matrix with a facebook messenger bridge? I know just the one finnish instance that offers bridging (pikaviestin.fi), though. I host my own home server.
@Suppoze @MentalEdge Well, that lead to my Facebook account being locked. And I wasn’t able to unlock it, since the associated phone number was an old one.
Wow. Rough.
It’ll be a good excuse to make anyone who wants to talk to you, use something else.
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No
This probably won’t work for long since they’re rolling out E2EE for Messenger.
It works with whatsapp.
Oh so it’s just basically a different UI over WhatsApp?
No. Due to how whatsapp works, you have to have a phone with whatsapp installed, somewhere.
The matrix bridge connects to that, and “puppets” your account, bringin those chats into your matrix account.
Matrix can bridge to a ton of different chat services, but each one can work a little differently. They usually don’t support voice and video.
Matrix is what’s behind the scenes for beeper, for example.
Ahh gotcha. Sounds neat!
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?
Try Hermit on Android then. You’re looking for a PWA wrapper app that lets you add them to your homescreen. Then again, your Android web browser should already have this with the “Add to homescreen” feature.
You know what’s even better? Not using Facebook at all!
Why still use Facebook when we have the Internet?
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.
In many countries it’s the default communication app
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.
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.
At least in Australia it’s by far the most popular messenger app. It wins by a landslide thanks to the network effect.
Yeah, there’s no real alternative here. Use messenger or Don’t talk to people.
Because we have standards for at least 20 years for messaging I think we can’t say that networking effect is upside of some app, but rather the fact that everyone must use the same app is a downside.
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.
Some of my late mum’s friends only use Facebook. Not saying it’s ideal, but… a single good thing, right?
Back when people used Facebook, it was a convenient way to connect people to chats quickly and easily. I don’t think that’s the case anymore though.
It isn’t. Adding someone is always digging through people with the same name and searching for “that one with glasses on profile picture”. There are some codes to scan, but they are Facebook’s custom format incompatible with QR code scanners and inconvinient to use.
Would beeper be a better solution for you? Self-hosted beeper, and a matrix client on your phone.
ATM beeper Facebook bridge works fine. Use it daily. I’d prefer to self host beeper/matrix/bridges but haven’t had time to set it up and got an invite to beeper a few weeks ago.
But this means people will continue to use that network. It’s not desiderable for me
Can you pass any guides on how to do this?
Users need to install regular Messenger app instead
No, they don’t.
Lol yeah not gonna happen.
