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7 common Facebook Messenger problems and how to solve them
A buggy Facebook Messenger app leaves a sour taste
If you chat with your Facebook contacts, you probably use Facebook Messenger. It's one of the best communication apps. Facebook Messenger is a powerful app that allows you to stay connected with friends and family worldwide. It's the most popular messaging app in many countries, including the United States, and offers a range of features. Even though Facebook offers feature-rich Messenger apps on iPhone and the top budget Android phones, those apps aren't without issues.
How to leave a group chat on every messaging app
It's time to exit those annoying and spammy group chats
Group chat is an essential feature on all messaging platforms. You can create a group chat to keep your family and friends in the loop, brainstorm ideas with team members, collaborate on an event, and enjoy seamless communication. Still, someone might add you to an irrelevant group and spam your inbox with endless messages. If you're a part of such a group, use the tricks below to take an exit.
How to share your location on Facebook Messenger
Here's how to use Facebook Messenger to send your location
Facebook isn't only for sending memes, looking at your friends' babies, and trying to avoid (or not avoid) arguments. It has practical uses that we don't think about very often. One of those is sending your location to people using Facebook Messenger.
Meta finally kills off Messenger Lite
Following the SMS cutback in Messenger, Facebook bids farewell to Messenger Lite
For many smartphone users, apps like Messenger Lite were akin to digital havens — places where simplicity reigned, and bloatware was a distant memory. Born from a need to cater to users with limited data or those simply seeking a streamlined communication experience, Messenger Lite championed a minimalist approach to messaging. It was lightweight, both in size and functionality, offering core features for those who wanted to stay connected without the frills. However, as the tides of the digital world are often unpredictable, we now find this beloved app fading into the horizon.
End-to-end encryption will become the default on Messenger by 2024
Meta has been working on expanding E2EE since 2019
While end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is the default on the best secure messaging platforms, this hasn’t always been the case with some Meta products. Facebook Messenger, for example, only began to offer E2EE as an option for group chats and calls last year. Despite this lag, however, the company remains committed to expanding upon E2EE availability. Now, it’s aiming to make E2EE the default for one-on-one Messenger chats by the end of 2023.
Android has the unique ability to set a default texting app for sending SMS and MMS messages through your carrier. Back in the operating system’s early days, many apps added support for this feature in an attempt to get users onto their messaging platforms — Facebook Messenger, for one, gave you a place for all your texting needs by integrating SMS messages right alongside its web-based instant messages. Sadly, this feature is sunsetting next month.
Facebook Messenger ventures into Discord territory with multiplayer mode
Meta wants you to lose hours playing games with friends during a video call
In 2016, Facebook (now Meta) launched instant games in an attempt to get users to play games just about everywhere. However, three years later, those titles were moved from the Messenger app to the Facebook Gaming tab in an effort to streamline the platform, which had become cluttered with extraneous features at the time. In a surprising twist, Meta has brought gaming back to Messenger, and it's taken things to the next level with a new multiplayer mode.
Your encrypted Facebook Messenger chats get some much-needed upgrades
Meta is also expanding the test of E2EE chats by default on Messenger worldwide
Meta rolled out support for optional end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) conversations in Facebook Messenger seven long years ago, with options to secure group chats and calls arriving in early 2022. Alongside the new security feature, Messenger users who use E2EE chats were treated to a few other features available in regular conversations, including access to GIFs, stickers, and reactions. Meta is now expanding the list of supported features for secure Messenger conversations, bringing E2EE chats closer to feature parity with standard chats.
WhatsApp group chats soon won’t look like forum discussions
Even forums show you contributor profile pictures
In the last few months, WhatsApp has been doing a lot of work to catch up to rival messaging services, especially when it comes to group chats. Meta’s most popular messaging service has a polling feature, moderation options, and a list of past members for group chats in the pipeline. This week, Communities also began rolling out to beta testers. Now we're learning about another upcoming improvement in the same vein: profile pictures for group chats.
WhatsApp-style end-to-end encryption could soon be the default on Messenger
Facebook Messenger shares news of several E2EE features it's getting started testing
Messaging apps are constantly playing catch-up with each other, borrowing new features as they all slowly evolve in the same direction — and that's all the more true when you're a company like Meta, with multiple apps under your control. We just saw WhatsApp implement its own version of Instagram’s emoji reactions for messages, but today we're looking at security features, including the arrival of WhatsApp-esque encrypted backups for Facebook Messenger.
Facebook Messenger's latest update makes talking to friends as easy as a single tap
The Calls Tab combines your contacts and your call history
Facebook Messenger isn't just built for the group chat you keep with your friends. With support for video and voice calls, it's capable of replacing most of the messaging apps on your phone — so long as you keep an active Facebook profile, that is. With a new update, calls on Messenger is getting a bigger focus on calls, with a dedicated tab that feels straight out of Android's default dialer.
Facebook Messenger introduces Slack-like shortcuts so you can ping everyone all at once
Will you use this @everyone power for good or evil?
Shortcuts are an important part of all the best chat apps out there, and Facebook Messenger is no different. It has long given users the ability to tag a specific person in a group by typing “@” followed by their name. But the Meta-owned app is taking things to a whole new level with an “@everyone” option exactly like Slack, alongside several other new in-text shortcuts.
In 2018 developer Dylan McKay noticed that Facebook was doing something unexpected with information from his Android phone — it was recording names, numbers, and duration for every call. Shortly after he made this public via Twitter, multiple Android smartphone users got together and filed suit against the social media giant, alleging a violation of privacy. It's taken almost exactly four years, but now it looks like Facebook is ready to settle the claims.
Facebook Messenger groups now have end-to-end encryption for calls and chats
One small step for E2EE, but one giant wait until Meta makes it the norm
Meta isn't hurrying to encrypt the communications of Facebook and Instagram users from end to end by default. But it will continue to make baby steps on providing E2EE to them, including to groups on Facebook Messenger starting today.
Facebook Messenger celebrates a full decade of being the only way your extended family can reach you
Group games, sending birthday money, sharing contacts, and more are incoming
We're all familiar with Facebook and its main messaging service, Messenger. It started life as the messaging component of the Facebook social network, and while it still is, it's now its standalone service as well, can be used without a Facebook account, and has been picking up plenty of features. Messenger may not everyone's cup of tea — it's certainly not mine — but it's still a massive app with a user base in the billions. This month, it's celebrating its 10th anniversary, and Facebook is taking the opportunity to introduce some new features.
Facebook's slow roll on encryption has made it to video and voice calls on Messenger
But not by default
Facebook has been slow to implement end-to-end encryption for its messaging apps, but the baby steps continue to happen nevertheless. Today, it announced the introduction of opt-in E2EE for voice and video calls in Messenger.
Facebook Messenger becomes the third non-Google app to reach 5 billion installs on the Play Store
Following Facebook and WhatsApp
With the popularity of Android, plenty of applications have managed to cross over the one billion installs threshold on the Play Store. It's a lot more selective in the five billion-plus club, which only two non-Google apps have ever succeeded in joining. You can finally bump that count up to three, as Facebook Messenger achieved a new milestone for installs just this week.
Don't expect Facebook Messenger or Instagram Direct to add end-to-end encryption anytime soon
The company refers to it as a "long-term project"
End-to-end encrypted conversations aren't just for whistleblowers and government officials. These days, more users than ever before are aware of how vital it is to keep conversations away from prying eyes. Apps like Signal and Telegram gained huge new followings earlier this year after WhatsApp botched a privacy policy update, calling attention to the importance of implementing extra security for communication tools. Today, Facebook recommitted to bringing end-to-end encryption to both Messenger and Instagram Direct, but it could take longer than some users are willing to wait.
Read update
If you were having difficulty sending a message on Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger earlier today, or if you ran into problems signing into Instagram, you weren't alone: All three Facebook services suffered a widespread outage, with tens of thousands of reports across seemingly all markets. Other services like Oculus may also have been affected. However, things seem to be normalizing now as of around 2:30PM ET.
Many Android fans believe in a sort of holy grail: That iMessage can somehow be brought to Android. Almost everything else when moving from iOS to Android has a workaround, an app, or some way to accommodate it, though iMessage remains an Apple-controlled platform exclusive with a dominating presence in the US market. But a new app formally launching today called Beeper aims to change that, delivering not just iMessage for Android, but a single unified messaging app for all your other services, too, like Telegram, Slack, Signal, Twitter DMs, Discord, Hangouts, and even IRC.