Meta discontinues Messenger Lite for Android, it will be unavailable after Sep 18. Users need to install regular Messenger app instead

Ever since Facebook forced the separate Messenger app, I've refused to install it. Instead, when I see a message notification, I pop into a browser, head to Facebook.com and push the desktop version. While it's clunky, I've never had to download Messenger.
- Separate messaging app was the best thing they ever did. I've not had Facebook installed since.
- Same. This will change nothing for me. I refuse their bullshit.
  
  You're still using their shit, just in a very inconvenient way. In fact, you're going to their site that contains targeted ads rather than using an ad free app. What a strange hill to die on.
- https://mbasic.facebook.com/ still works. It's missing some modern niceties, but usable. That's what I use for occasional messages.
  
  In my head, i read this URL as https://YaBasic.facebook.com
- Why? I mean it's much better to have the messenger app without all the facebook BS.
  Its very easy to disregard facebook in 2023, but Messenger is still one of the more prominent messaging app.
- https://www.messenger.com/ also works (requires to be running as desktop version). Still not ideal but works.
- I hate to say this, but Facebook Messenger is one of the most fully featured messaging apps. It has its own internal messaging standard that offers iMessage like features between Facebook users, and it also is one of the better SMS apps out there.
  I can see why they make it its own app, it's supposed to replace other messaging apps.
- Same here. I wish Disa messenger app was maintained as it was my one stop shop for a few messenger apps.

Is their messenger still a 150 MB monster that gets updated twice a day?
- Yes, and they constantly change how parts of the UI work, most often getting more in the way of efficient actual messaging... It's really bad.
- They cut the size down to 30 MB on iOS in 2019, but they're back to 110 since (on Android, it's 60 MB).
  EDIT: In terms of updates, they are pretty stable at one update a week on both systems.
  
  Android 13 here, Messenger is 148mb, last update 11 days ago
- I think the Facebook Lite app includes messaging too.
- No... I disabled the auto updates.

I wish someone discontinued Meta
- Too bad Threads hasn't entered the Fediverse, things could've been easier.

I'll die before I install Facebook Messenger
- Same. Just have to hold out until the EU makes all messaging apps cross+operable and then I'll be able to talk to everyone again.
- Careful. They could be listening.
  
  I hope they are.
  Hey Facebook, eat a bag of dicks!

- Everyone in my family 😞
  
  Ask them to go physically to your house if they ever need to tell you something urgent. If they refuse to, good riddance
  
  They all have phone numbers you can text and they don't need to install another app or sign up for anything at least. But I understand when they prefer it and you have a fb account anyways.
  
  Same.
- Over 3 billion users combined.
  So, to answer your question: "Nearly everybody."
  That's overly dramatic, we're over 8 billion already... so it's "Nearly half of everybody" 😜
- Facebook is the main social media in Africa. It's not a bommer thing there, everyone use it.
- At least a billion people
- Australians apparently. That's what my cousins said as the explanation for why their family chat was on Facebook.
  
  Messenger is the most popular messaging app in Australia by far. #2 is Apple/Facetime (which is about equal with WhatsApp in terms of market share) but there's a huge gap between #1 and #2.
- Living in western Europe I would have said no one, but in most of central and eastern Europe is strictly necessary to reach anyone.
- Only the stupidest of humanity.
  
  Well, there goes central Europe

- Unfortunately FB Messenger is the defacto way to communicate in some countries - if I refused to use it I'd fail uni as I wouldn't be able to communicate with group members, I wouldn't be able to contact most of my family, and the number of friends I can talk to would drop to about 5 (of which most have recently had children and are thus a bit preoccupied)
- I use Telegram every day, but without end-to-end encryption (by default and on groups), it's as private as Facebook Messenger. They can read everything. The only difference is that currently people trust them more than they trust Facebook, but everything turns to shit eventually.
  If Signal is too "boring" or no one uses it in your circles, try WhatsApp. Yes, it's also from Meta, but at least comms are encrypted (same protocol as Signal) and a lot of people use it.
  
  Really bad advice. Trading Meta app for Meta app. It is proprietary so you can be sure WhatsApp does not have encryption like Signal
  
  Messenger supports end-to-end encrypted chats, and more encryption features are rolling out. https://messengernews.fb.com/2023/08/22/expanding-testing-for-end-to-end-encryption-on-messenger/. It's a huge project to implement encryption given the number of features that have to be rewritten (e.g. scraping URLs to show a preview picture now has to be done client-side rather than server-side)
- You (op) use telegram, and make a relay bot that redirects messages to/from fb messenger. You use the app of your choice, and they use the app of theirs. Big downside, is you're still reliant on fb for messages.

And they put a notification on your phone about it that you can't remove... this infuriates me more than it should
- You're right, I did not even notice the persistent notification! What a unnecessarily annoying move. This deserved an early bird uninstall for me...
  
  Yeah I uninstalled as soon as I realised it was a persistent notification. Fuck that.
- At least on my phone I could swipe the notification a bit to the left to reveal the cog, "disable notifications", and disable the "standard" category of notifications.
  In other news, there's no way in hell I'm installing the full app. People texting me there will just have to wait until I'm by a computer.
  
  Yes, but that is the same notification category as your default one for messages, so disabling it will result in no message notifications at all.
- Yeah I just turned off every notification from Messenger Lite after seeing that. Next month I might just uninstall it completely, or opt for the Matrix bridge.
- Another reason my phone is rooted. I want to have the final say in whether I can remove a notification or not on my phone.
- I'm also on the uninstall boat with y'all, for this reason. Lucky me, I haven't used messenger in a year so when I saw the notification didn't hesitate. Haven't logged on FB in years so I doubt anyone will try to reach me there.

I swear my battery life improved after I uninstalled messenger for a while and got worse after reinstalling recently.
I wouldn't have installed it except I was in the process of getting back in touch with a few old friends. Was totally worth it for that.
- I'm on the same page. I would prefer not having those apps installed or even an account, but my friends are more worth to me than my IT ideals.
  
  It's too bad that your friendship isn't more important than ten minutes of inconvenience for them to install a different app or to give you their actual phone number.
- I've found the same thing with the IG and FB apps which is why I don't use them. I stick to the mobile web versions but they have made it difficult to message from the android mobile web without extra steps like desktop mode. Even then there can be missing functionality.
  There was also an article earlier this year where they were purposely "testing" the apps that forcibly drained some user batteries quickly without a care for the actual users affected. Since I'm often using my phone for navigation in the woods I want as much battery life as possible please.
  Anyways if it wasn't for older friends and family members I would no longer be using FB.
  
  Certainly a argument can be made for this. For me it is the extended family and contacts from hobbies /sports. Without FB they would have completely faded out of my life. This low level method maintains a loose family connections once maintained by the senior family members that have long since passed. As for the others yes completely disappear from your life...
- Of course it did. They're tracking everything you do, and everywhere you go, even when the app isn't running. Don't believe me? Install the Duck Duck Go browser and enable App Tracking Protection. You will be shocked by the amount of shit so many apps track in the background, but Facebook is one of the worst.

This sucks.
Can't ditch it completely due to family, but got a few more contacts over on Signal after this announcement.
- Just log in to Facebook on desktop every couple of days. If they want speedy responses, they will know yto try an aternative medium.
- I don’t use Facebook so I don’t know -
  Why can’t you just have a group text with your family.
  
  Because SMS doesn't support group chats and MMS is expensive garbage (50c/300kb is fucked)

You can use Beeper to replace all your communication apps. That way you only have to install one app, and you don't have to have Meta installed.
- It sounds like a too good to be true situation. Definitely an interesting concept though. Sounds like they use remote servers to connect to the third-party apps using your credentials and then transcribe the messages using the Matrix protocol to the app. Source here and snippet below
  Beeper consists of two main components:
  A client app that runs on your devices.
  A web service run by Beeper.
  ... Beeper’s web service consists of a Matrix homeserver and infrastructure to run open source bridges that connect to 15 different chat networks.
  Currently free but also will be a Plus version eventually rolling out, according to the FAQ
  For now, everyone has access to all the features of Beeper Plus for free. At some point in 2023, we will begin charging $5-10 per month for Beeper Plus.
  Also, no humor is lost on the fact that it is dangerously close to Wuph from The Office...
  
  I signed up for beeper, but realized you can self host a matrix server that uses the same bridges between these chat services.
  I was skeptical at first, but it's been super solid and refreshing to have a single chat app for everything.
- I signed up for this month's ago and I'm still not in. Every time I log into the app to check my waitlist, I'm some random number in the 3000s, and not always lower than last time. Why is this do you know?
  
  If you're technically savvy, it looks like you could self-host the application. https://github.com/beeper/self-host
  
  I've never heard of beeper, but it sounds pretty inaccessible from what your saying. Is there something that makes it worth it? Or is it just another messaging app that nobody I need to speak with is using?
  
  I was in the wait list for only 20 days, according to the email when I got in. No idea why I got in so fast but others have been waiting months.
  
  Genuinely I just found an invite code from Google. Once you're in the app is pretty much as advertised.
  
  I signed up when it was first announced over a year ago. As of a couple months ago I still hadn't gotten approved. I signed up again and within a couple days I got approved. You should try signing up again.

Just gonna leave this here: https://www.signal.org/
- Well, family at least is going to be willing to switch to signal...

Why still use Facebook when we have the Internet?
- Old people are there, some we care about, some have passed away...
  There are a few decent communities out there too. Not many, but a few.
- In many countries it's the default communication app
- The only and I say the only good thing I can say about Facebook Messenger is... umm...
  Can somebody name at least one thing? Really, this app is shit but we must find one at least.
  
  At least in Australia it's by far the most popular messenger app. It wins by a landslide thanks to the network effect.
  
  Yes, people using it as the main messaging app is still preferable to the situation in the US where people on different mobile platforms can't message each other without bullshit compatibility issues and bubble colors.
  At least here it doesn't matter what platform you're on - including desktops and the web - and as a result nobody cares.
  Of course, the same is true for almost every other messaging service too, and there are better ones out there.
  
  Back when people used Facebook, it was a convenient way to connect people to chats quickly and easily. I don't think that's the case anymore though.
  
  Facebook Messenger is probably the closest thing to a modern Yellow Pages as we have. Not everybody is on there, but most people are - even if they haven't checked their profile in years. With the fall of landlines, it can be the easiest (or only) way to find/contact someone - especially if you're a GenX or early Millennial because we have all dropped out landlines, but we created most of our social connections before any other messaging service existed. Heck, almost none of the people I knew from college in the 90s even had an email address that they stuck with (assuming I actually had email logs going back thirty years). It's nice that so many message services exist, but most have no way to "look someone up" the way it's possible to do on something like messenger/fb. (admittedly - it's both good and bad)
  I suppose there's a chance that LinkedIn is the other major database of real names out there; I've never tried it for locating people.
  
  Some of my late mum's friends only use Facebook. Not saying it's ideal, but... a single good thing, right?
- Marketplace became the defacto replacement for craigslist in my area 😔
  
  It's the only reason I use it and, as much as I hate to admit it, it's really well done/seamless/painless to use. Literally the only good think on FB (until they inevitably ruin it too). Has fantastic consumer protections.

I can't uninstall the Facebook app from my phone (not unless I use ADB), so it's disabled. I uninstalled Messenger. I pinned a post on my FB page that said if people needed to contact me they can email me or text me. I have posted about why folks should leave these platforms until I am blue in the face. If they want to make the switch, they will. If they want to reach out, they will.
Eventually, I want to get an unlocked phone, load a custom ROM, and tell the big platforms to fuck off. I resent how difficult they have made that, and I resent how complacent we have become because of it.
- Most phones can be unlocked provided you own it. Easier than you might think!
  
  Carrier unlocked and oem bootloader unlocking are two very different things.
  In canada, all phones must now be free of carrier locks, but bootloader unlocking is a pain. The us version of my current phone can be oem unlocked.
  Mine can't.
  So, i use a lot of adb/shizuku
  
  If I can get a custom ROM to work on my current phone, I'm all for it! I was looking at specific unlocked phone brands because some custom ROMS are optimized for that hardware.
  
  My next phone will be a pixel so I can flash grapheneOS on it. I don't think my Snapdragon S21 can run custom firmware without triggering Samsung Knox though
- Your phone came with Facebook installed and you can't uninstall it? Fucking gross! Which phone is that so I know to never buy it?
  
  This could be true of basically any Android phone on specific carriers, at least in the US.
  
  Sony for one. My Xperia One III (a fucking $1300 or whatever flagship) comes with a completely uninstallable Facebook apk

Here's an idea. Stop using FB.
I get it, your boomer parents/grandparents don't know how to use anything else... But you can show them. It's very similar and doesn't suck as much.
I understand this move from FB too... Rather than maintain two apps, that both do the same thing, just maintain one. However, without the ability to turn off all the bloat and crap in the one app to make it very similar to the other, I don't see that being viable for many, and I'm sure they don't let you do that, so, ha ha, get fucked.
Anyways, Facebook is a cancer.
- All of my international friends use Facebook Messenger.
  e-mail is an alternative, yes, but to put obstacles to how can you be contacted is how you lose touch with each other.
  
  If I'm always going to where my friends are, and they never come to where I am, are they really my friends?
  These are the questions I constantly mull over to try to figure out. It's extremely important to me that me and my friends are on equal footing, we're both partners in the friendship, neither is following the other's lead. I've lost many friends by simply not being the first person to send a message.
  To me, I'd rather have fewer friends who have me as an active part of their life, versus a lot of friends I'm constantly making concessions for that wouldn't do the same for me.
  With all that said, I'm not you and I have no control over your choices. Do what you will.
- Family is not the problem, everyone else is.

Or install an app called Metal.
It's a wrapper for the mobile webpage with all the intrusive permissions disabled by default.
- I just looked for this app and it looks like it hasn't been updated since 2018. Am I wrong?
  
  On the play store page I got the message "not available on your device, this app has been designed for an older version of Android", not updated since June 2018 and I can't find it anywhere else, seems you're not
  
  Try Hermit on Android then. You're looking for a PWA wrapper app that lets you add them to your homescreen. Then again, your Android web browser should already have this with the "Add to homescreen" feature.

- If people are still playing within meta’s walls they are lost and won’t be leaving anytime soon.
  But all my friends are on there! M-m-my followers!!!
  They didn’t miss the boat, they straight up ignored it. Nothing has changed so why should their poorly reasoned decision?

Better idea don't install messenger at all

The main issue here is how aggressive Fuckbook is when it comes to the messager, since they started to hide it on mobile devices they fucked with every attempt to revive that functionality with a none Fuckbook apps till the creator gave up. They are bad enough with normal clients (most of those died for a reason) but somehow even worse when it comes to the messager!

Matrix with a facebook messenger bridge? I know just the one finnish instance that offers bridging (pikaviestin.fi), though. I host my own home server.
- Wow. Rough.
  It'll be a good excuse to make anyone who wants to talk to you, use something else.
- This probably won't work for long since they're rolling out E2EE for Messenger.
  
  It works with whatsapp.
- No

Users need to install regular Messenger app instead
No, they don't.
- Lol yeah not gonna happen.

I have personally made a switch to Delta Chat, and will be e-mailing people from now on. I will be checking facebook occasionally, as I face the same issue as others in this thread: Facebook is the default communication tool in my country. However, I have told everyone I'm connected with, that I no longer have a mobile app for facebook communication on my phone, and will only respond swiftly og they use e-mail or SMS. Let's see how that goes.
- you can go 1 step further and try to use signal, It's much more convenient.
  
  Your contacts would all need to sign up on Signal as well, while they already have an e-mail address.

Would beeper be a better solution for you? Self-hosted beeper, and a matrix client on your phone.
- ATM beeper Facebook bridge works fine. Use it daily. I'd prefer to self host beeper/matrix/bridges but haven't had time to set it up and got an invite to beeper a few weeks ago.
- But this means people will continue to use that network. It's not desiderable for me
- Can you pass any guides on how to do this?
  
  https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=beeper+facebook+bridge+self+hosting+guide

Not incredibly surprising given how little it's been updated and how things like clicking links doesn't work. Definitely exhausted by how aggressively things are just getting worse now.
- Yeah, both Messenger Lite and Facebook Lite are fucked. Post a photo or video on Facebook Lite and it's guaranteed to be blurry piece of shit. If it's shot horizontal, it's going to be low-res vertical with letterboxing on the top and bottom. I have to hop on the main app just to post a discernable video for my family.
  If I didn't live on the other side of the continent and Facebook were my only real lifeline to my friends and family, I wouldn't use it at all anymore. But now there's this sunken-cost fallacy shit on top of it all, and how I get daily memories from the deceased like my father and grandmother. "Hope you're having fun in Canada, love you, Gram". Some of these messages are still applicable today, and I don't know how to separate from that.
  
  and I don’t know how to separate from that.
  Take screenshots, load them all into a folder and use some kind of gallery widget or app to show you one daily.
  I think I've seen calendars that will show you an image a day but I don't know how well you can set images to certain days, etc.
  
  All you are saying is its too convenient for you to stop using it. What makes it less convenient is learning about alternative ways to meet the same ends.
  You'll find like a lot of others that giving up control to Facebook doesn't necessarily equate to the most convenient tool

You can use Facebook Lite instead of the main Messenger app if you want to. It's got messaging integrated into it.
- For now...
  
  I doubt Facebook Lite is going anywhere - it's needed in poorer regions where very old phones are used. Lite renders a lot of its UI on a server (similar to how Opera Mini works) which is how it's so lightweight.

Well that's annoying. I only ever use it for if I'm trying to buy something off a stranger on one of those facebook market groups. Which only happens a couple of times a year.
So I guess I will have to install their big version and then uninstall it after I buy the thing.

How will it affect me? Well! It won't because I dont use facebook. Lol
- How will it affect me? Well! It won't because I don't use Android. Lol

Are you using video/audio call functionality? If not, get on the beeper waiting list. It supports connecting to facebook messenger, but it doesn't support video/audio calls.
- What keeps this from being blocked by the service providers like any other third party app?
  
  Probably nothing. I haven't heard of other apps being blocked. But Beeper has been running for like a couple of years now (but recently changed to a freemium model, before it was subscription only and had some people had been on the waiting list for a year+, they said they are aiming to get down to no wait in the next 3 months, and that was probably a month or two ago).
  If you think it's at risk of being blocked, that doesn't mean you can't make hay while the sun is shining 🙂
- Thank you for the tip, I'll sign up. I occasionally use the audio call functionality, but shouldn't be an issue.
- Does it support image attachments sent via Messenger?
  
  Yes, all file attachmemts. See chart here.
  Some quirks that I think are notable:
  you can't create new FB chats. To message someone, you must have already messaged them in the past. You can't make group chats, but can reply to existing ones.
  There isn't a thumbs up button like on facebook. I just add a thumbs up emoji reaction to the comment as a replacement. If the other person thumbs up's, it comes through as an image.
  the above linked table mentions no support for "captioned media messages". I'm not sure what that means (is it snapchat style image with text over it?) or how to do it but maybe this matters for you
  Otherwise FB messenger is one of the better supported platforms on beeper in terms of feature support.
- Yeh, it works pretty great. And they’re working hard to cut the waiting time down.
- NIce! Thanks :)

Nope.
It'll die.
We're all on another app anyway.

Lots of options aside from Facebook.
- Not if you need to communicate with people who use facebook.
  
  Not if it's them that need to communicate with me.
  
  Lots of options for other people
  /s

At least use messenger with vanced patches to get rid of all the ads in conversation view.

I don't use fakebook

I stopped using anything meta years ago. People who want to stay in touch with me and I them continued to stay in touch. If those people will not stay in touch with you, good riddance to them.
- Its really not that hard to use SMS or signal anyhow. I'm not entirely against WhatsApp either although I dont think I would ever leave it installed on my device long term

Welp that's not happening, so long Myspace, I mean book of faces

Something like Island/Insular/Shelter might help. I just discovered these apps recently and am currently testing Shelter. It seems to work.

So now people relying on the Lite variants will not be able to chat anymore, as Facebook Lite requires Messenger Lite a little time after it got released?

Use slimsocial to reply to those contacts that still insist to use that messaging app and tell them that you aren't reachable over there anymore, ghost any subsequent message
- Interesting, I didn't know about this

weird... i use Facebook Lite and Messenger lite prompted me to continue my conversation there
- I thought Facebook lite didn't include messenger features? If they're bundling it all into one lite app, I'd actually say that's a GOOD thing.
  
  I don't want to use Facebook on my phone. I just need to talk to people on there that refuse to use other apps.

Probably time to bridge from XMPP then

Well, at least the full app has the opt-in E2EE chats.

This might be a bit annoying. On my Realme phone, no amount of setting changes stops it from killing Messenger randomly. It didn't kill Lite so I could trust it, and put up with it despite its issues.

- I've tried, and on the mobile site there's no way to access Messenger. Only workaround is if you force the desktop version on messenger.com but it is very inconvenient.
- The mobile site is unusable, and if you switch it to desktop it's very hard to use on a touchscreen.
  If anyone has alternatives, I'd appreciate it!
- Supposedly you will be able to use FB Lite app to chat. I got the same message, uninstalled Messenger Lite and verified that FB Lite app works for chatting.