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

I have not found any news article on this on a whim. Because my friends and family, I need to use Facebook Messenger, and Messenger Lite was a OK client - lightweight, no unnecessary features, etc., compared to the regular Messenger app.

Now I'm a little torn, having a Meta app on my phone is already bad, but having to downgrade to the bloated Messenger app? Not sure I will make a change. What are your thoughts?

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  • 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 🙂

        • At least for third party WhatsApp clients, they have tended to go down by not only seizing to work, but with WhatsApp temporarily blocking any account connecting from them.

          I'm curious if there's a solution not so much for convenience on android, but it would be a game changer for Linux phones where WhatsApp and Facebook messager is not available at all except in the web interfaces. :)

          • It seems Whatsapp wants to keep their secure image, and doesn't allow third party apps. Your only choice is basically to give the third party app your login details, which is against the Ts & Cs.

            Facebook provides a way to authorise third party apps and grant them access to your data. It seems to be a different end goal, and I couldn't find anything about facebook banning peoples accounts or even blocking third party apps.

    • Yeh, it works pretty great. And they’re working hard to cut the waiting time down.

    • 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.

        • Ah, that's excellent and just what I need. I'll probably self host in the next two months.

          • Just remember the client itself is proprietary (as their business model will be client features), but the bridges are open source.

            So you can self-host a facebook bridge and matrix server, but you'll need to connect to it from a matrix client. You can't do it from the beeper applications.

            The Beeper application is a fork of element, but you should be able to use any matrix client. In the past I've self-hosted the facebook bridge and successfully used it with Element so don't let it put you off 🙂

    • NIce! Thanks :)

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