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Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

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Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#411

Post by pikachu_is_cool »

alexland wrote: post #392
pikachu_is_cool wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of reasons to not use Messenger. 1. The mandatory "seen" indicator 2. All of your messages are beholden to a private company, permanently stored in plaintext 3. They analyze said messages to deliver advertisements. Seriously, one time I mentioned buying a Samsung SSD to my friend in chat, and all of a sudden I got a ton of SSD advertisements on the sidebar. Same thing when I mentioned Rick and Morty. 4.…

Most of these sound like reasons not to use Facebook in general. While the seen indicator is a legitimate annoyance, it's been commonplace for some years now. I don't know of a modern chat app that doesn't have it. As for the rest of your points, Facebook's money comes from ads. These concerns are not limited to chat, but using Facebook in general. As you browse the web, Facebook is tracking you and using the data to…

> I don't know of a modern chat app that doesn't have [the seen indicator].

I don't use those either. I stick to texting and iMessage.

> The point of using Messenger is that you're not tied to any other portion of Facebook.

You're tied to their ad platform. Whether you view those ads or not are up to you; but you are nonetheless tied to it. They analyze your private conversations with the eventual hope to manipulate you.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#412

Post by greggman »

alexland wrote: post #392
pikachu_is_cool wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of reasons to not use Messenger. 1. The mandatory "seen" indicator 2. All of your messages are beholden to a private company, permanently stored in plaintext 3. They analyze said messages to deliver advertisements. Seriously, one time I mentioned buying a Samsung SSD to my friend in chat, and all of a sudden I got a ton of SSD advertisements on the sidebar. Same thing when I mentioned Rick and Morty. 4.…

Most of these sound like reasons not to use Facebook in general. While the seen indicator is a legitimate annoyance, it's been commonplace for some years now. I don't know of a modern chat app that doesn't have it. As for the rest of your points, Facebook's money comes from ads. These concerns are not limited to chat, but using Facebook in general. As you browse the web, Facebook is tracking you and using the data to…

It seems unlikely they'd bring the encryption in. I often have several messengers open. My phone, my tablet, my home desktop, my home laptop, my other home laptop, my work desktop, my work laptop. How will encrypting like Whatsapp keep that working? Some how they'll always be tunneling to my phone from all the various machines?

Also, as an alternative, Hangouts stores my chat history in gmail (opt in), so unlike Messenger/Line/Whatsapp I have a history of all my chats on Hangouts which I actually find very useful.

That said, 99% of my friends and family are on FB Messenger

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#413

Post by greggman »

unholiness wrote: post #385
SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it's less about solving problems and more about breaking out of that web browser sandbox to siphon up more of that juicy, juicy data.

More likely it's about getting more immediate attention from push notifications. If you only ever use chat in the browser, you only see messages when you actively check it. With the app installed, you get a giant bubble that you can't ignore for every message. FB wants to be the messenger that people respond to immediately. For me, I actually like the messenger bubble UI, and love that it's not built as a gateway to…

Not for much longer

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/03/push-notif...

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#414

Post by ptaipale »

I dislike this change, but fortunately - at least so far - it is possible to use Chrome on an Android phone and request the desktop version of any site, and Facebook desktop version still allows using the messaging function in browser.

I'm not going to install Facebook messenger, it east battery and reports my location when I don't want it to. So if they kludge the desktop site so that it doesn't work on Android Chrome, I'll just not use Facebook messaging. Facebook should at least add an auto-reply function to tell anyone who tries to message me that "please send email to xxx instead".

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#415

Post by crindy »

gcr wrote: post #351
galdosdi wrote: post #295

This is kind of convenient; it gives me one more excuse not to use facebook. A few days ago I got the usual notification email that somebody had sent me a message on FB. Clicking is a low barrier so I clicked, curiously. Then I instead got the "No, now you have to install Messenger app" screen. That was enough of a barrier that I said "oh forget it, who cares, anybody who knows me would know better than to send me an…

I see it the opposite way. Using Messenge could give you a great way to use facebook without subjecting yourself to the News Feed Giant Tentacled Monster. Why not use Messenger without Facebook? My reason not to use Facebook was because it trivializes friendships. With Facebook, I wouldn't have to go out of my way to be "friends" with someone, so the relationship would be less meaningful. But Messenger doesn't share…

I'm just gonna go ahead and mention [messenger.com](https://www.messenger.com/) for anyone who agrees with you and doesn't know about it. It's essentially the messenger app in the browser, so you can access your Facebook messages without even coming across the news feed, any ads, etc.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#416

Post by SerLava »

tamana wrote: post #409
wahnfrieden wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use http://messenger.com then

Wow, sure is ashamed of themselves, hiding their name from the messenger homepage

>know when people have seen your messages

Oh cool, they brought over the thing that made me completely stop using Facebook!

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#417

Post by daimyoyo »

I saw this change last night. I will never, EVER install FB Messenger because I don't want facebook to have access to my contact list. Period. This is the worst move the company has made since Beacon and I am at a loss for words to think of how they are justifying forcing people to use an app they clearly don't want to use.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#418

Post by dimino »

galdosdi wrote: post #295

This is kind of convenient; it gives me one more excuse not to use facebook. A few days ago I got the usual notification email that somebody had sent me a message on FB. Clicking is a low barrier so I clicked, curiously. Then I instead got the "No, now you have to install Messenger app" screen. That was enough of a barrier that I said "oh forget it, who cares, anybody who knows me would know better than to send me an…

I use Messenger mostly because it's the only app that's actually achieved quorum amongst people who I talk to.

If that weren't true, I wouldn't use Messenger, and if that's not true for you, I can understand not using it.

I don't really understand, however, why folks like you try to make this a morality issue.

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