Facebook Nixes Access To Chats Outside Of Messenger Walled Garden (arstechnica.co.uk) 155
Tom Mendelsohn, reporting for Ars Technica: Some smartphone users of Facebook are reporting that they're no longer able to access their messages from the mobile site, and that they're being directed towards the free content ad network's dedicated Messenger app. Users of the regular Facebook mobile app were shunted over to Facebook Messenger to access their chats a while ago. Now, folk who access the service on their phone's Web browsers, or via third-party apps such as Tinfoil or Metal, are beginning to find that they can no longer view their messages. Complaints are popping up from users who are being told by Facebook that "your conversations are moving to Messenger." Some Android users are even finding themselves automatically redirected to the download link on the Google Play store when they try and view their messages on the mobile site.
Nothing to see. (Score:5, Insightful)
You use a free service you have to accept their structure and design. Seriously, I'm tired of all the bitching about Facebook, don't like it, don't use it.
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Seriously, I'm tired of all the bitching about Facebook, don't like it, don't use it.
I'm tired of all the people who bitch about the people that bitch about Facebook. Unfortunately, I seem to be compelled to read their comments, and then respond.
Re: Nothing to see. (Score:4, Insightful)
Bitching is how you get them to change it, just like how you're bitching to get others to change their behaviour.
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If user dissatisfaction causes people to move to other services or use Facebook less then Facebook will have no choice but to make concessions. It has fuckall to do with whether or not the service is "free" as Facebook is still profiting off of its users.
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If user dissatisfaction causes people to move to other services or use Facebook less then Facebook will have no choice but to make concessions.
Because that approach has worked so well with Windows 10...
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It works better if more than 2% of the people actually switch to the competition.
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I just deleted my FB account. It's the closest thing to "vote with your wallet" there is. I posted a brief "I'm closing my account because..." message before deactivating it. I found it amusing that somebody "Liked" that post while I was deleting the account. BTW, it's pretty easy to deactivate an account. Takes much more effort to actually delete it, but it is possible.
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If user dissatisfaction causes people to move to other services or use Facebook less then Facebook will have no choice but to make concessions. It has fuckall to do with whether or not the service is "free" as Facebook is still profiting off of its users.
Do the words Too Big To Fail ring a bell to you?
It should, because Facebooks decisions to change any part of their service has fuckall to do with what users want, and has everything to do with monetizing you and your data on their service.
The reason I bring up Too Big To Fail is due to their sheer numbers. They'll change any fucking thing they damn well please. The customer base is addicted now, and they know they'll always have enough addicts. Even change that "infuriates" some won't mean dick to them o
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You use a free service you have to accept their structure and design. Seriously, I'm tired of all the bitching about Facebook, don't like it, don't use it.
I don't use it, but I still enjoy bitching about it.
I also don't rape children, but I still talk shit about people who do.
NEWS FLASH: Not doing or using something doesn't mean you give up the right to bitch about it.
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Sure, but it's not interesting to read. The other day some twat on reddit was whining because he couldn't get his kindle replaced for free outside of the warranty period. He had an online chat with a customer services person and kept giving them links to pages which apparently described people getting post-warranty kindle replacement and he was outraged that the amazon stuff weren't interested. Reading people whining about facebook is a little like that; absent the moral outrage of child rape or whatever
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Well this is exactly what I'm going to do. Not use it.
Messenger is user-sanctioned spyware. Once installed it pretty much helps itself to anything it can get its hands on in your device, and sucks it back up to Facebook. No way is it going on my phone.
I've used the mobile website for a while now. Today I get constant redirections to the Messenger download page. It's been on the cards for a while, and now it looks like it's time for me to part company with Facebook. I think I'll manage.
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I got the same result, but I eventually got it to let me in.
- I clicked the back arrow on my Android phone
- then it showed me the message in my inbox
- I clicked on the message to read it
- then it asked me to install the Messenger app
- then I clicked the X in the upper right hand corner
- then it showed me the full message
How long this will work I don't know. YMMV
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Hold up. It IS within your right to bitch. Facebook doesn't have to listen, however.
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I'm curious... (Score:2)
Assuming you want to use Facebook Messenger, why wouldn't you want to just use the app? I can certainly understand not wanting to use Facebook Messenger (or not wanting to use Facebook at all), but why a strong preference for using messenger through a mobile browser?
Re:I'm curious... (Score:5, Informative)
The apps are huge battery hogs - Facebook on Android is one of the worst offenders. Removing it virtually doubled my battery life.
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Interesting, thanks!
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Just checked mine and both apps are using 475 megs of space. This is not counting cached data. Anything over that depends on what you send such as images and so on. Cached data depends on what the user does thus can't really place blame on the app.
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You do realise Facebook and Messenger are two completely different apps right? The former is a bucket of shit and the latter makes Skype and Whatsapp look like they were coded by 2 year olds after their first learn to code class.
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I wouldn't be too hard on the WhatsApp engineers. They weren't allowed an afternoon nap after achieving 140 million concurrent connections before taking their first learn-to-code class.
Rick Reed: Half a billion unsuspecting FreeBSD users [youtube.com]
Kids these days. All they want is time off for good behaviour.
Turning our heads 180 degrees, if you wanted to look like you
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You do realise Facebook and Messenger are two completely different apps right? The former is a bucket of shit and the latter makes Skype and Whatsapp look like they were coded by 2 year olds after their first learn to code class.
Yeah, I stopped using their chat functionality when they introduced the Messenger App. Still drives me nuts because the Facebook App still has section in it dedicated for the Messenger functionality - including giving you notifications (e.g you have 5 messages) about messages that only Messenger will let you read - but gives you zero actual access to those messages instead trying to push you into Messager, which I refuse to install. So the messages just sit there until I eventually get around to logging int
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I always see people saying this however I have never experienced it. I don't understand, are people that have it suck battery using it almost every hour of the day?
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Removing it virtually doubled my battery life.
If the battery life savings were only virtual, that's no good to me. I need real change.
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The apps are huge battery hogs - Facebook on Android is one of the worst offenders. Removing it virtually doubled my battery life.
That's nothing....removing the Facebook app doubled my actual life.
(In truth, I never actually used Facebook or had the app installed.)
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The apps are huge battery hogs - Facebook on Android is one of the worst offenders. Removing it virtually doubled my battery life.
Not to mention that the Messenger app completely ignores the quiet time settings in Android. Enjoy getting woken up by BINGS in the middle of the night because someone sent a message.
Re: I'm curious... (Score:2, Insightful)
Their mobile site nice and lightweight. It's not the best, but it's been way ahead of their app for usability for some time now. The push to update their app weekly has turned it into a bloated, unnavigable kludge.
Re: I'm curious... (Score:1)
Permissions (Score:5, Insightful)
When it installing Messenger, it "needs" access to
* Identity
* Contacts
* Location
* SMS
* Phone
* Media/Photos
* Camera
* Microphone
* Wifi connection info
* Device and call info
Basically, EVERY bit of sensitive data on my phone. There was a recent radio broadcast where they were able to determine that FB was checking your location multiple times per second (whether or not you were using the app).
So yeah, no f'ing way that PoS app is getting installed on my device.
Mobile sites more secure than social apps (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mobile sites tend to be far more secure for users than social apps
They also tend to be utter garbage that barely works and is rarely used.
Re: Permissions (Score:1)
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No it doesn't. I have all permissions for the app blocked and it works just fine. http://i.imgur.com/RcLJwsw.png [imgur.com]
Re:Permissions (Score:4, Insightful)
That's cute. What happens when you tap the Menu and look at "All Permissions" ?
Does it find all accounts on your phone? Linking you to any publicly available API data for any of those accounts, plus whatever non-public data Facebook managed to wheedle out of the organization (because, you know, "we're Facebook")
Does it view Wi-Fi connections? Which they can cross-reference against anyone else who does have location enabled. Sure, maybe they don't have a GPS lock on you 24/7, but they can still tell where you went.
Does it retrieve running apps? You know, to scope out the competition. Or to note down that you have $embarrassing_app running. Or whatever.
And I'd be surprised if it stopped there.
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Those of you on Lollipop have the choice to port Marshmallow to your phone, unlock its bootloader, and install your port of Marshmallow.
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When installing the Facebook App, it "needs" access to
* Identity
* Contacts
* Location
* SMS
* Phone
* Media/Photos
* Camera
* Microphone
* Wifi connection info
* Device and call info
* Storage
* Application UI overlays
* System Tools including listing all applications
* Control Audio settings
* Accounts including acting as an authenticator for 3rd parties, and reading all accounts
* The ability to modify battery statistics -- ??WTF
* Read homescreen settings, widgets and shortcuts.
* Control Vibrator ^_^
If you have Messeng
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So it's some sort of flashlight app, is it?
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On my phone right now; Facebook is using a total of 225MB (46.32MB for app, 179MB of data); the messenger app uses 71.04MB total; 42.2MB cache, 28.84MB data. On an Android phone...with Lollipop or Marshmallow; you're using about 5 gigs of space for just the OS; on an 8GB phone you have 3GB of space left. With how bloated Android apps can get; sometimes you literally don't have the space for it
I like the service, not the app. (Score:1)
Because Messenger (as a service) is the only way I get messages from some people. I either stop talking to those people, piss those people off by constantly cajoling them into switching services, or just talk to them the way they want to talk to me.
But Messenger (as an app) is a hateful piece of programming. I haven't had the battery issues others do, but it consumes too much memory, and causes other parts of my phone to misbehave (camera, etc.) so I'm happier not using it.
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Because Messenger (as a service) is the only way I get messages from some people. I either stop talking to those people, piss those people off by constantly cajoling them into switching services, or just talk to them the way they want to talk to me.
But Messenger (as an app) is a hateful piece of programming. I haven't had the battery issues others do, but it consumes too much memory, and causes other parts of my phone to misbehave (camera, etc.) so I'm happier not using it.
I migrated to Disa [google.com] for my Facebook messenger needs a few months ago. So far so good. I got pissed off at the ever increasing notifications from the main Facebook app (itself old because I refused to upgrade to a newer version with more permissions) "Do you know so an so?" "Wish so and so a happy birthday" Fuck off and don't bother me unless someone is specifically engaging me (message, tag me in a post, or write on my wall).
I use Disa for Facebook messaging, because for some friends it is the best way to co
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As for the main topic of the article: That's what you get for using a propietary protocol/service. The owner gets to dictate how you use it. Every day I grow more and more tired of walled gardens and propietary services.
Re:I'm curious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming you want to use Facebook Messenger, why wouldn't you want to just use the app? I can certainly understand not wanting to use Facebook Messenger (or not wanting to use Facebook at all), but why a strong preference for using messenger through a mobile browser?
When you install the app onto your phone, you grant it certain rights, like access to your address book. Just accessing the FB mobile site through a browser stops FB from getting access to stuff you might not want them to have access to.
I remember a case a few years ago when the FB allocated FB-specific email addresses to its users. The app would actually scan through the contacts list on your phone and if it recognised the email address of one of your contacts as being another FB user it would *automatically and silently* change the email details on your phone's contacts database to use the new FB-assigned address.
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Because the apps are Spyware. The app even listens with your mic and drains your battery.
The reason they are doing this is to force people to download the spyware. The web sites have limited ability to spy on you.
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Well, a few reasons really:
1. I don't like ads and I can adlbock on mobile web but not as easily on iOS for apps (if at all) which is why they are doing this in the first place.
2. I don't want to download unnecessary applications which take up storage I want to use on other things.
3. I don't see the need to have two different applications to interact on the same platform.
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A couple years ago Facebook was caught modifying contact's email addresses so that all email sent would go through them. It's shit like that without users permission that makes people want to use a web browser which is more limited in what it can do.
On my iPhone, it never altered contacts on my SIM or Gmail account; instead I got new a new "Facebook Contacts" account which I then had to manually associate with existing contacts. At most, contacts I had in Facebook, but not in Gmail got an @facebook.com email address.
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Why would it need to download your entire contacts list, when it can just make web API requests as you search?
It is the tracking economy (Score:1)
Get through your heads...
APP steal information
Fackbook wants all your information
Facebook APP is the worst of both.
So you want to send a message, do not use Facebook.
it is easier to just nix facebook (Score:2)
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Which can't be done on most phones because they aren't rooted.
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Then wipe and root your phone, or if you can't, sell your used phone and put the money toward one that you can root.
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For your tech savvy person sure this can be done. I use to do it all the time. However go to your normal user and say this to them. They won't know what the hell you're talking about. Most people can't do this.. Most people shouldn't do this because they will do something wrong and brick the device.
Anyone able to modify their hosts file most likely has better means to block the app from doing things such as using Xposed. Also the fact that host names can change all the time, it could be a never ending b
Can you do a vacation autoreply? (Score:2)
I would want to setup messenger with a message that replies 'I don't use messenger, so i am not going to get your message. please contact me some other way.'
Remember when others started this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, they all tried to eliminate competitors by disallowing using competing messaging systems together with theirs.
In other words, FB is working on making itself as obsolete as these market leaders once were. Took them shorter than I gave them, actually.
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Errr no. Facebook is not blocking 3rd parties. That hasn't been allowed for many years. What they are doing is blocking the use of their website on a mobile device, and with good reason too. Facebook messenger on mobile is basically Skype but a shitload better. Their website has a tiny fraction of the functionality and completely divided the user base.
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Call a spade a spade and say that they want you to use their messenger on mobile because of the sweet tidbits of personal info they can siphon that way. There is literally NOTHING they don't want to get their grubby paws on in your phone.
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I was waiting for someone to come up with that comment. It's a funny comment since Messenger requires several permissions LESS than the Facebook app which everyone already has on their phone. The best part of that Facebook app is when it comes pre-installed you don't even get a chance to accept or deny the permissions it seeks. It's always there.
I actually think it's a good thing. A ground-up re-write of the messenger app has produced something that's far slicker and more stable than the garbage Facebook ap
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I only want Messenger for short TEXT messages with people I have friended. I do not want notifications, video calls, bots, suggestions about what to eat or which movies to see, permanently tracking my every step and possibly recording my microphone and camera ....
I just want short text messages with my friends.
The website has always been sufficient for that. Unfortunately for Facebook, it doesn't make them much money.
I'm not sure why you added "completely divided the user base" to the end of your comment, u
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I'm not sure why you added "completely divided the user base" to the end of your comment
Easy. You just showed to me you have the ability to send a text message while the person at the other end may have the ability to video call. It's not sufficient that I see you online, but now I get to play the guessing game as to which of the buttons may or may not work when I want to talk to you. That's what we call a divided user based due to functionality.
I'm not sure why you made reference to Mark Zuckerberg's balls. I can only assume you couldn't come up with a technical argument and started thinking
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No, they want you to use it because it will attempt to become your default SMS app and then they can access all your communications.
That would concern me more if the Facebook App that comes pre-installed on most phones, and is far more widely used than the Messenger app didn't already do that.
It's like saying I want a photo of your so I know what you look like while we're talking face to face.
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What tiny fraction of the functionality? What is the difference the app gives? To me the user, the Facebook and messenger app didn't appear much different than the mobile site other than lacking notifications. The app also gives Facebook more permissions.
Disa so far still works as a third party client. [google.com] On a PC (or a mobile set to "Get desktop site"), www.messenger.com [messenger.com] seems to give most useful features of the app
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The mobile page is unable to video call properly, unable to audio call properly, unable to access the camera, unable to select which hardware to use, and this goes for the desktop website too. Also casually saying "other than lacking notifications", is like comparing an sms to snailmail, quite a huge omission for an instant messaging system that is trying to rival skype or whatsapp.
There's a good reason there's a different icon for someone on the web interface compared to messenger. It's a little indication
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In other words, FB is working on making itself as obsolete as these market leaders once were. Took them shorter than I gave them, actually.
None of those others were tied to Facebook and Facebook is not going anywhere. Sure, I uninstalled Messenger several months ago and have no intention of installing it again, but all my friends and family won't magically start using some alternative app.
In Facebook's walled garden (Score:2)
free content ad network (Score:2)
Tough choice (Score:2)
Lose access to yet another message service or let Facebook's shitty apps waste my battery, slow my phone down, and piss all over my permissions.
Man, I just don't know.
Fake user agent (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll fake the user agent and use the desktop site. On a tablet it's ok.
Garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
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"after their 'real name' policy that actually puts LGBT people and abuse victims in physical danger."
Nahhh... nowadays you get awards for courage and everybody hits the like button when you admit you are LGBT. It's any person who says anything even construed to be not completely accepting and embracive of anything and everything LGBT-related who is in danger of being fired, taken off the air, kicked out of the organization they started, taken to court, forced out of business, denigrated by the press, calle
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The point where Facebook forces me to install software on my phone that drains my battery
You do realise the big complaints about battery life is the Facebook App itself right? I've yet to see a phone with Messenger listed up near the top of the battery usage stats.
Except my sister's but then that's the only app that is ever open on her phone.
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Even on the desktop the messenger function of Facebook has a small amount of functionality compared to the mobile app. Somethings obvious, like being unable to send an photo directly from a camera, but others absolutely absurd, like being unable to select which camera or audio device you wish to use during a video call.
There's been an unfortunate number of times where I've been using Facebook messenger on my Surface and someone says let's do a video call and I am forced to reply, wait, let me find my phone.
That's why I use an older version (Score:2)
Turns out I'm using Facebook version 3.9 from 2013 on my mobile (Moto Maxx/Droid Turbo). I ripped the apk with AirDroid from my older phone and installed on the new one.
The app has the messenger inside itself, instead of an independent app. With time, it stopped working and popped a message to download the independent app, until I found a guy which made an
www.messenger.com also, but has workaround (Score:2)
Lol, Facebook (Score:2)
I'm like, so shocked that Facebook would use its influence and power to lock its users into its own ecosystem!
Disable Facebook Messages? (Score:2)
I've used Xabber in the past... (Score:1)
What about requesting the desktop vers? (Score:2)
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Use desktop web site instead of mobile one (Score:2)
In your mobile browser login to the normal web site instead of the mobile one. Use the "Request desktop site" or equivalent option of your mobile browser.
You'll have access to the chat and messenging functionalitiies, problem solved.
Re: Why not just use email? (Score:1)
Because email isn't IM?
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Why not use any number of alternatives that aren't Facebook? FB Messenger is probably the last resort for me.
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Because email isn't IM?
Unless you're logged in 24/7, Facebook Messenger (FM) via a browser isn't IM either.
The main advantage for FM is lack of spam -- at the cost of surveillance.
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Why not just use email?
It has none of these problems, and far more benefits.
Because email has it's own problems. Mainly spam and pseudo-spam. I completely abandoned email a couple years ago. I still have an email address but the only thing I use it for is to search for a message that someone has told me via IM/text/phone that they sent me. If someone sends me an email message without notifying me via some other method that they are sending it to me then there is a 90+% probability that I won't read it.
That being said, I also uninstalled facebook messenger from my phone because
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I get maybe 2 or 3 spams a week at most that make it through my filters.
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I get maybe 2 or 3 spams a week at most that make it through my filters.
It's not the real spam as much as the psuedo-spam. Every single website, grocery store, credit card, etc... requires you to confirm your account with an email address and then each of these sites send you 2-3 emails per week. You've technically opted in but really only wanted a password not constant irrelevant updates. After a while, you have several hundred of these and many of them require you to remember your password and log into their site to unsubscribe. My postal mail is the same way. I have all
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Gmail spam filters work's so well these days
Re: Why not just use telegram? (Score:1)
Screw FB! Use telegram.
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Re: Why not just use telegram? (Score:1)
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You're boring
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Our biggest mistake was creating the United States of America.
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"But my friends need to contact me on faecesbook" - Get some better friends.
I can't get better friends, I don't have any mod points!