Facebook: Over half a BEELLION loyalists have SPURNED our Messenger app Facebook says approximately 500 million people use the huge free-content advertising platform's Messenger phone app, which is more than somewhat short of the 1.12 billion people who visit the social network each month from their mobiles. Meanwhile, rival WhatsApp is said to have more than 600 million regular users. "This is …
The reason for the phenomenal usage figures of any of these apps - WhatsApp, WeChat, Line, etc, etc...
is because they are pre-installed on nearly every mobile you buy anywhere in Asia, not because they have organically grown one person at a time through word-of-mouth.
So any criticism towards Facebook for doing the same with its app should be levelled at the others too.
I'm in the UK. I don't have whatsapp. I only found out about whatsapp on the weekend where I went to a party full of british chinese, who seemed to all have it and use it as a verb for messaging.
So I don't think its _all_ down to bundling with phones across asia in general.. at least not anymore.. it seems like it now has enough traction to move on its own.. at least amongst the asian community (in my admittedly small sample).
They allow you to connect with XMPP (formerly Jabber) protocol,
server is chat.facebook.com,
port 5222,
your username is your facebook 'url name' @ chat.facebook.com,
so facebook.com/RandomCommentard would be
RandomCommentard@chat.facebook.com,
Password is facebook password.
[edit: Use SSL/TLS: yes, and Allow Plaintext Authentication: no]
Disadvantages: None, for someone who can find these details
Advantages: Use your own jabber/xmpp client, raise middle finger to intrusive permissions from zuck-app, integrate with other IM services on the same client *cough* pidgin *uncough* etc.
XMPP is certainly the way forward on a PC, but the floating heads do have some advantages on a proddable device.
I just need an XMPP proxy somewhere, so that I can get store and forward delivery to my XMPP clients, since they don't "catch up" when they reconnect.
and then never once used it and, in fact, deleted it. Admittedly, I have been slowly crawling off Facebook and would have deleted my account if it weren't for my mom and aunts and all, but I downloaded the app to get rid of the reminders, deleted it, and never looked back.
What's the problem with that? I and my friends use texting on our cells when we can't use voice and none of us are on FB. Maybe we're the oddballs.... we care about our privacy and prefer real-life connection whenever possible. We don't send selfies and post pictures of our lunch and cats. Hmm... we are odd,
Yes, snowflake, if you and your friends don't use it, then no one should.
I don't use Facebook messenger either, or indeed any chat clients. I've never been fond of IM as an interaction model, even back in the days of UNIX write(1) and the like. I did use chat for a few years for work reasons but it fell out of favor there and I don't miss it.
But I don't understand this obsession a certain segment of the Reg readership has with telling us they don't use Facebook, or whatever the object of scorn du jour may be, in the comments for every single fucking story about Facebook. If you can spare some time from not participating in Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter, and whatever else is popular these days, maybe you could refrain from telling us about it as well?
(Really, in retrospect I'm amazed Usenet wasn't full of posts from UUCP fans proudly proclaiming their independence from TCP/IP. "NNTP is nothing but an excuse to post uuencoded binaries! If your message doesn't fit in a single V.42bis block, it's not important.")
"Really, in retrospect I'm amazed Usenet wasn't full of posts from UUCP fans proudly proclaiming their independence from TCP/IP"
That might have been a case of UUCP people joining their forces with SNA people (not that any of them would admit it) in ignoring these newfangled Usenet & TCP/IP thingamabobs.
Had the mobile app and a friend convinced me to install the messenger app. The battery on my Samsung took a dive following the installation of the messenger app. It wasn't like I was using it constantly it was just installed. Took both apps off and the battery life went back to normal... I just use the mobile website now. Works a charm.
Took both apps off and the battery life went back to normal
Precisely the same story, me on Android, girlfriend on iPhone. Makes you wonder how many Facebook / messenger apps have been uninstalled because of the forced usage / battery drain, when mobile website works just as well and no intrusive beeps whenever someone posts a photo of a humorous cat / dinner / important social ms.
I have Facebook Messenger and Facebook on my cellphone only because they were pre-installed, and I am too lazy to dig out the instructions on how to remove them from a rooted phone (mine is rooted), I just don't use them.
I did use whatsapp, until facebook bought it, at which point I deleted both my account and the app.
"You don't trust facebook then?" "Nope, not one little bit."
Yep, Messenger remains very much deliberately uninstalled on my phone, although facebork is installed by default (one of my few gripes with android is that you can't nuke preinstalled bloatware without rooting.) Firstly, I don't see why I need a pointless 25MB app to not speak to anyone, secondly, it sucks the battery like a fruitbat in a del monte factory.
If I ever want to use chat i do it on the browser.
I do especially like the fact that the higher the companies market cap, the lower the quality of the app they provide. It makes me realise that all big companies are all as "agile*" as your average supertanker, not just the one I work for.
* Agile is our favourite word this year. It replaced "synergy" which replaced "touching base"
Someone commented on the people that just don't do mobile FB at all.
I would add those of us who have been forsaken by FB as well: there's no "Facebook Messenger" for BlackBerry, which is probably a good thing.
Not that I would use it anyway; FB is already the app that seems to drain away my battery as it is.
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