481–490 of 517 posts
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Because everyone has it. And it doesn't need a phone number. So it's almost as ubiquitous as SMS, without distributing your phone number. Win-win.
how often do you want to chat with someone you wouldn't give your phone number to though? if they can call you via messenger anyway, where is the win in them not having your phone number?
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The Facebook app is a memory hog though, and was causing UI lag in other apps on my phone. I have very little idea how it was doing that, but when I removed it, the lag stopped.
I uninstalled the Facebook Messenger app about 3 months ago when I saw a news article about how it devoured battery on Android, because I was having battery life problems at the time.
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"better for the user" does not mean "better for EVERY user". A product team has to prioritize. I hate the permissions demanded by messenger, but for me it is nicer to use than the mobile site. I'm curious what people prefer about the web chat version?
The web version has no obnoxious notifications (yeah I know you can block them), but the big reason for me is that it's unable to access your contact list, text messages, photo gallery, camera, microphone and GPS. I don't want to share that information with Facebook/5 Eyes.
The mobile web version gave me everything that I needed when using FB - checking some occasional updates, messages and people posting baby pics. Nothing that requires a separate app, and nothing that requires an app, esp since you need to be connected to the internet to see anything. I really don't see (from my perspective) the point of any FB app.
The mobile view was awesome for me. This move blows. Since the messaging is still available on the desktop browser version, this literally means zero extra development time.
FU FB.
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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.
All I get is a big ad to install the app from Google Play.
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 find it rather interesting that in many ways the components for private and secure and owner controlled "social networking", where the user controls the data, already exists, yet is just not being put together. I think if Apple realized this, they could not only decimate Facebook, but essentially grab huge chunks of the remaining market they don't control because people would promote Apple product and service use if it meant secure and private communications with those one really cares about.
Because that's the crux really, we don't really share and have conversations with anyone but our close associates and friends and families, there is absolutely no value or benefit to the user to hand over the content and control of their data to the likes of Facebook.
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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…
> As you browse the web, Facebook is tracking you and using the data to deliver more relevant ads. As you comment and make posts, Facebook uses the data to deliver more relevant ads. This is why Facebook is best used in an incognito-mode browser window.
I use multiple tabs with FB whenever I do have to use it, and private/incognito mode wouldn't work well for that scenario because it would force me to login in every tab. So instead I use normal mode with extensions to block ads, tracking cookies, social features on websites and Facebook Redirection (where clicks are handled by FB to track which site is being visited). This is with a combination of uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and a few others. That way, I get to have multiple FB tabs but don't see my profile in the comments section on another site to allow further tracking. Any link I visit from FB isn't exposed to FB either.
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…
The counterpoint is that I know heavy FB users (myself included) who have opted to just install Messenger on their phones, essentially being able to get rid of FB on the phone, to limit distractions but keep the nice communication While I kinda get removing it from the mobile app, I don't really know what the rationale is for getting rid of mobile web chat though. It's not like it's disappearing from the desktop web…
I'm guessing that within the next one year or so, Facebook will force people to move to official apps even on desktop systems (like Windows and OS X), closing browser based access completely. That would give Facebook more control on tracking, ads, etc.
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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'm waiting for the next chat service to emulate the 'ytalk' and 'talkd' practice of the 1980s to echo all keystrokes to the other party as they're typed, rather than waiting for the user to press send. "Instant Messaging" indeed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software)
Spec: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0301.html Demos: http://www.realjabber.org/
Not that Google (or whoever) are going to implement it now...
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Android 6 fixes this excessive need for permissions by mobile apps. You only grant permission at runtime and can withdraw it at anytime.
As far as I know, it's still tricky to install an app, then revoke all permissions before the app can possibly run? It would be different if no apps got any permissions by default, and they all had to "prompt on first use" - but that's not how it works, or is it?