Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 517 posts

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

#161

Post by e12e »

peteretep wrote: post #21

Help me understand - why is this so bad?

There are no good chat platforms that have anywhere near the network effect of Facebook. There are a couple of silos that are ok, like Hangouts and presumably iMessage. People don't generally use XMPP. Sending a text message can be a bit intrusive, a facebook message is more like an email in that I don't expect to wake someone in a different timezone if I send one - but it's unlike an email in that I can be fairly certain (a certain subset) of people will get it. And might check it/reply when it's convenient for them to talk. An asynchronous signalling of a conversation, if you will.

So when choosing between a lot of bad and propietary options for chat, fb messaging was best.

Except you can't and shouldn't trust FB to make client software; they take to many permissions, they might mess with your (contact) data - the apps have an inflated sense of urgency (hangouts is guilty of this too). And they are resource hungry.

And as fb chat is generally (for me) somewhat asynchronous, the web client was perfect: I could see if there were any new messages, and if there were any new notifications at the same time.

Moving this to one platform, for me, kills the product. At least on mobile. And if I can't use it on mobile, I'll probably slowly stop using it altogether.

For me it's mainly bad, because I see no clear alternative. Facebook was the one silo I could reliably reach most acquaintances. I'm not on snapchat, but even if I was, there are people I might occasionally reach out to on fb, that I probably won't contact/be contacted by on snapchat. Google social efforts is a joke, and many people don't really use email for personal communication.

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

#162

Post by e12e »

abhinavk wrote: post #160
e12e wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's how it works for apps targeting API 23 (Marshmallow).

Right, but the fb app targets much older APIs? And/or how would you know before installing?

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

#163

Post by peteretep »

e12e wrote: post #161
peteretep wrote: post #21

Help me understand - why is this so bad?

There are no good chat platforms that have anywhere near the network effect of Facebook. There are a couple of silos that are ok, like Hangouts and presumably iMessage. People don't generally use XMPP. Sending a text message can be a bit intrusive, a facebook message is more like an email in that I don't expect to wake someone in a different timezone if I send one - but it's unlike an email in that I can be fairly ce…

The first part of your argument makes perfect sense.

The rest less so. Looking at my iOS phone's options, I believe I can disable access to pretty much any data the browser doesn't have, including notifications. What am I missing?

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

#164

Post by amelius »

jds375 wrote: post #11

So rather than fixing the problems that result in users messaging via the mobile web app instead of the messenger app, they're just going to "solve" the problem by forcing users to use the messenger app? This is why Facebook as a company doesn't have high levels of consumer trust. This will bite them in the future. Once you lose that level of trust it is extremely difficult to gain back.

If fixing a chat app poses a problem to a billion dollar company, then we have bigger problems to worry about.

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

#165

Post by shawn-butler »

e12e wrote: post #138
galistoca wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a FB fanboy or anything, but sometimes it is a good choice to free yourself from legacy tech burden and build for the future. The web (html documents fetched via http requests) were not built with mobile devices in mind, especially websockets. In the mobile era, all messaging is based on push notifications which must go through the device vendor (APNS or GCM), and trying to support the legacy tech in this lan…

Yeah, first they threw out xmpp, so I couldn't use my preffered messaging app, then they kill messaging in the web view, forcing me to give up messaging or move to their messaging app, with intrusive permissions. This after they've soundly established that they don't respect users, with how they mangled addressbooks with an earlier version of the fb app. At least, since they're closing access from alternative sources…

Please stop calling it google wave.

It is Apache wave. And nothing is dead if a community wants it to be alive.

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

#166

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

aceofspades19 wrote: post #61
rietta wrote: post #20

I dislike this change. I specifically only access Facebook on my phone via the web app because (1) it saves significant battery and (2) I absolutely do not want the popup bubbles during the work day from church and other social groups I am connected to on Facebook. Ultimately, all this means is that I will stop accessing Facebook Messenger on my phone all together. I will communicate with the people who matter most o…

I use the facebook app quite a bit, and its never used more than a few precent of my battery in the battery stats on Android, and usually significantly less than my mail client(K-9 Mail) so I never understood the meme that the facebook app uses a ton of battery. Just having the screen on is going to use more battery than the facebook app.

YMMV, but on my phone (HTC One M8), Facebook is almost always the top battery user as shown in the Android battery usage report.

And on my old phone (a venerable HTC Desire HD), Facebook's decision to make me install Messenger in addition to the regular app some time ago was the turning point from low latency and good user experience to overall lag in the phone.

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

#167

Post by sidcool »

pbiggar wrote: post #158

So glad they're doing this. FB messenger is just about my favourite messenger - it beats the pants off iMessage and isn't as annoying as WhatsApp (the UX around starting a conversation with a new person in whatsapp is super shit). It was really annoying that there's some holdouts where voice chat doesn't work (has anyone noticed how much better the quality of voice chat over FB messenger or iMessage is, vs phone call…

So what's stopping you from simply using the native FB messenger. What's the point in forcing everyone install the native app?

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

#168

Post by jakub_g »

colordrops wrote: post #115

Speaking of dark patterns, Google has completely broken Gmail and Google Docs/Drive in incognito mode in Android Chrome. It purposefully loses the cookie and will not function once you switch away to another app and then back to the browser. They are trying hard to force people into using the native apps, or at least staying logged in, for GMail/Inbox and Drive. It's really lame. Instead of being passive-aggressive,…

Install Chrome Beta, Opera, Opera Beta. Voila, now you have 4 separate cookie jars for different use cases. For staying logged in gmail/fb I use Chrome beta, Chrome stable for normal browsing.

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

#169

Post by blaze33 »

zem wrote: post #126
robocat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't seem to work on mobile tho Did you try the Android "Request Desktop Site" checkbox? Edit: just saw that Zem says that works: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11835060 Edit 2: Jeswin says it isn't useable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11834996

it's usable for me if you switch to desktop, but still go to m.facebook.com rather than www.facebook.com (easiest way is to go to facebook first and then switch to desktop). i'm guessing that whatever ajax call clicking on the message icon triggers gets a "this is a desktop" token attached to it even if you are visiting the site via m.facebook.com

I can confirm, go to facebook website, request the desktop version (messaging works there too) and go back to m.facebook.com, messages are there.

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

#170

Post by pmontra »

I think it's their second attempt at this. I remember when they were opening dialogs to invite me use Messenger to reply to messages on a page I admin. I switched the browser to desktop user agent, which on a tablet is ok. Eventually they gave up. I'll do the same this time.
Post reply on HN