back to article Facebook splats in-app chat, whacks brats into crack yakety-yak app

Facebook users must switch to the social network's dedicated Messenger mobile app if they want to keep chatting away to their Facebook friends on their phones. A spokesperson confirmed to The Reg that Facebook had started informing people that online chat is moving out of its main social networking app on iOS and Android, and …

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  1. dwrjones87

    I could do with something to make it harder for people to contact me and to quieten my phone down a little bit. This will do nicely

    1. Thecowking

      Exactly my thought. The facebook messenger is a horrible thing on the website and much worse in the mobile app. I can't wait to be able to ignore it even more plausibly.

    2. VinceH

      "I could do with something to make it harder for people to contact me and to quieten my phone down a little bit. This will do nicely"

      I just don't have any friends. I find that works quite well - it not only stopped people sending me messages on FaecesBook (when I had an account) but in any other context as well.

      * Checks phone.

      Oh look, no messages. Yay!

    3. Euripides Pants

      "I could do with something to make it harder for people to contact me and to quieten my phone down a little bit. "

      Epoxy works too.

  2. Moeluk

    ummm wait what?

    Well that seems a good idea...take an app where people can do two things relatively ok and then make them download another app, for the sole purpose of removing them from the place where you generate your advertising revenue....

    Hmmm.......I might be being stupid, but this just seems another reason to stop using facebook...i rarely use it for anything other than to chat to maybe 2 or 3 friends...thats it, it's all just baby bullshit and other things.

    1. bigtimehustler

      Re: ummm wait what?

      Indeed, I don't really understand this move, surely the most sense would have been to simply develop out the messaging area of the facebook app to the same level as they have done with the new app. Thereby improving the experience but keeping people within the one app, so they can easily move back to the feed and see your ads etc...

      Seems to make no sense to get a message alert in the facebook app, click it and it open up another app. Just merge the code from the messenger app into the facebook app, far more sensible.

      1. Paw Bokenfohr

        Re: ummm wait what?

        I suspect that this will be the first step in a program to eventually integrate WhatsApp and FB Messenger in some way; they may maintain a separate WhatsApp app, frozen at the current functionality, but the FB Messenger app will get all of the functionality of WhatsApp (meaning those that want can ditch the WhatsApp app and keep only FB Messenger to get FB and WhatsApp messages in one place) and then start adding in IP voice calls, add in WhatsAppIn and WhatsAppOut services for regular phone calls etc etc to get everyone to move to the one app, and monetize further.

    2. Simon Harris

      Re: ummm wait what?

      "for the sole purpose of removing them from the place where you generate your advertising revenue...."

      Unless ads start appearing between every other line of chat!

  3. Dave 126 Silver badge

    >Facebook has started informing users that they'll have to download the social network's separate Messenger app if they want to keep messaging from their mobile phones.

    Er, users can still message from their phones by using the Facebook mobile website.

  4. Jess

    VK dropped support for Jabber about 9 months ago

    Since then my total use probably adds up to about the same as a couple of typical days before this braindead move.

    I noticed jabber stopped working for me on FB a few days ago, I had assumed it was because I'd disallowed app integration on websites, (a bit odd I thought), but perhaps they just turned it off.

    I think my facebook use has been halved.

    1. browntomatoes

      Re: VK dropped support for Jabber about 9 months ago

      XMPP is still working fine for me on facebook chat, and I'm not sure they've said they're planning to drop it either (though I could have missed that). It's just their own mobile apps they are dropping chat support from in favour of the other separate app.

  5. DaddyHoggy

    I used Lent as an excuse to stop using Facebook (several of my friends gave up Social Media in the run up to Easter last year and I thought I'd join them this year) - I've not missed it at all - and even in the month I've been away I think FBs continual changes make it less and less appealing to return!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You're right, they buggered about with the mangy old mutt so now it's even more of a clunky cluttered awkward waste of time.

      FB purity plugin to the rescue, even tossed the author a few bitcoin for his work on it. Now my screen is de-fluffed it's actually a really slick total waste of time. Main benefits: url redirect removal, resized text, ads gone, right-hand column gone, newsfeed wider.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So instead of one bloated slow and unstable facebook app cluttering up my phone and filling my storage with advertising vidoes the Zuck wants me to have two bloated slow and unstable Facebook apps.

    what a complete crock. ..

  7. Rick Brasche

    surprised?

    expect this to happen to the users of WhatApp next.

  8. ratfox
    Paris Hilton

    Huh?

    > Facebook messaging works both online and on mobiles

    Do you consider mobiles to be offline?

  9. Robert Grant

    Windows Phone as well

    I know there aren't any apps for it ROFL but if there were a Facebook app, it would also be stopping doing messaging in favour of their Messenger app (that also probably doesn't exist LOLCOPTOR!!!)

  10. jnffarrell1

    Rhyming headlines, Variety has an App for that

    But they'd have to sue you if you used it in your rhyming

  11. Mitoo Bobsworth
    Joke

    ...and the award

    for the most torturous headline goes to...

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