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Comment by mbillie1 | Hacker News Reader

Same. I initially only uninstalled messenger (which intolerably presented me with a popup asking me to enable notifications EVERY TIME I OPENED THE APP), then got rid of the FB app. Now even on my laptop facebook.com is pointing at localhost in /etc/hosts, which makes me edit a root file to look at it. I'm much, much happier. If it works for you, cool, but if you're dissatisfied and considering abandoning it anyway, I can offer anecdotally that it has been a great decision for me.

(The only reason I don't close my account: I check it once every week or so, because I have older family members for whom this is probably as far as they're going into the world of social media and I feel a bit guilty either pressuring them to use some alternative or disconnecting from them further, as they are unlikely to understand my dissatisfaction with the FB product and much more likely to take it personally)

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I installed the Lite version of Messenger, and it's way better. (Not available in the US App Store; there are verified APKs floating around the internet.) It's just a bare-bones chat app that launches when I want it, without all the nagging about chat bubbles, their Snapchat knockoff, and whatever else.

I picked up Messenger Lite when I was in Fiji. My phone isn't very good and struggled with normal Messenger.

With Messenger Lite, not only does it take a lot less space, it's a lot faster, and feels less bloaty. It's a lot like what Messenger was a few years ago, nice and simple.

I don't want to use Messenger to play games, or send giphys, or any of that other rich interaction stuff. The only thing I miss is the ability to send a pin of your location to someone, which is actually a really useful feature.

You can also go to Facebook on Chrome and request the desktop version of the site- Messages will work in that. That way you don't have to install a Messages app.

This used to work for me but stopped a while ago on android (still seems to work on iPhones somehow). mbasic.facebook.com is a really nice fast and minimalist interface where messages still work and I use it exclusively now.

Actually it worked for me only to read messages. When I tried to reply all the characters I've entered were disappearing so only sent dash and few commas. Bizarre and that was a new low reached by fb in their push of messenger app on mobile.

Actually you don't need to use desktop version. It tries to make you install it, but if you just click back to exit Play Store, and on the FB page to prompt the installation there's a faint X that you can click. At least it works in Opera Mobile.

Interestingly if I leave the tab open I also get notifications if someone responded.

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/facebook-2/messenger-lite/ is a reputable source for anyone who's interested.

The lite version is available in the us but it still drains your battery lol just not as horrible as the main line messenger app

I am honestly wondering if there is an inside joke for tech companies attempting to make the worst possible messaging app. Facebook messenger is god awful ugly, same with snapchat. Google Hangouts is ok at best (I personally have not used Google's other dozen or so messaging apps they have)

....and Microsoft' stellar success with Skype

GChat used to be great - it was simple, relatively lightweight and quick. Then it was rebranded Hangouts and became a little muddled and unwieldy for a brief period when Whatsapp was ascendent which nearly overnight caused my entire group of friends to switch.

You're right about the IM apps being not great. This and the poor state of desktop email clients on Windows and Linux are my pet hates

I'm sorry, but what?

I've had facebook messenger, gchat/hangouts installed on my phone for some time. I don't know if I'd call it great, but I have a hard time arguing that it doesn't immediately solve my instant messaging needs.

What exactly do you want that gchat or facebook messenger doesnt solve?

I want open chat protocols so I can use whatever client I damn well please (e.g. Adium, Pidgin, some terminal thing, or a bot made from a little python script, ...).

Whenever I’m stuck using a centralized service (Twitter, facebook, some web forum, whatever bullshit IRC replacement businesses are buying this week, ...) their client invariably does something different than what many people want it to do, but we have no recourse because everything is locked-down proprietary bullshit, even though most of the messages are plain text and could have been delivered just fine by open protocols in 1990. Not to mention these apps are all poorly designed resource hogs that spy on everyone, inject ugly ads, and burn mobile battery.

Proprietary push notifications on mobile devices are what really killed open IM protocols. What good is an open protocol, if the client app can't wake up to process it without a proprietary channel? We need to fix that mess first, somehow.

Well remember that this was a few years back so things were a lot different from today.

1. gchat (or "Google Talk" I think?) was a nice simple app that was replaced by a rebranded one that had different functionality and a UI that was either different or flakey/slow/unreliable (I forget all the details). I later learned that actually we were all duped by google - gchat itself was only turned off completely very recently, but at the time they managed to convince us that we had to use Hangouts instead. In any case, the whole thing was annoying enough that we left because ...

2. Whatsapp was starting to be very widespread and was a natural replacement for us as most people either had it or could quickly get it (you just needed a phone number and nearly any sort of phone, many feature phones support it) and it had a simple chat-only interface.

3. FB Messenger was not a separate application at the time, it was integrated in the FB app iirc and you still had to be a member of FB and add any contacts as "friends" to communicate. At the time it wasn't seen as a general-purpose chat app by _anyone_, just a way to talk to your FB contacts.

Hope that makes sense. If you're curious about the gchat->hangouts switch, I'm sure a quick search will turn up a few disgruntled articles - there were quite a few people who were annoyed. It probably didn't help that Google were in the habit of dropping products, so a few people may have assumed that they'd do the same with the chat app.

It's not that I want some additional feature, I actually want fewer features. The ability to name group chats and persist them leads people to treat them like chat rooms. The ability to send animated gifs means people send them. These apps very quickly turned from "alternative to text-messaging" to "full-blown chat room that wants push notifications each time anyone sends a message," and I don't want an app to ask me to enable notifications each time I open it.

I realize there are per-thread mute settings, but the whole experience of using these things is highly intrusive. At least with text messaging (or calling) we still have, to some extent, the social expectation that it is known to be intrusive, so people (in my social group at least) are less likely to text for frivolous reasons.

The desktop client was all I ever wanted in a chat app. Simple, fast, reliable. Which of course is why they killed it.

Competition. It's just like advertising. The more your competitors advertise the more you feel you have to.

Notifications from people are fine, e.g. 'x messaged you'.

Notifications from machines are the problem, e.g. 'x just did y'.

Uninstalling the app and redirecting facebook.com to localhost are great ideas. I also sometimes logout of facebook.com on chrome on my phone so that it makes it even harder to get back on.

Now if I could only do the same for reddit...

Since we are into personal anecdotes: the annoying giant red blinking popup they display all the time to force you to download the app instead of using the mobile website was all I needed to get entirely rid of my habit to visit Reddit, and I like the idea that I might not be the only one.

reddit is not far off from facebook to being a total time suck. i'd like to just be in a couple educational/technical subs or quit entirely but that /r/popular, it just calls out to people.

This guy has been talking about it for a while, see: http://www.timewellspent.io/

Actual question: what's the point of Messenger if you don't have notifications enabled?

To communicate with other people on my terms, when I want to communicate.

It's the same reason there are only a few phone numbers that can actually make my phone ring (my wife, the school my children attend, and pager duty (:P))

My device exists for my convenience.

>there are only a few phone numbers that can actually make my phone ring

Could you describe briefly how to configure that state of affairs? What OS do you use?

You put iOS in DND mode and whitelist VIPs by starring them or putting them in a contact group.

Android 7 (lineage/cyanogen at least) can do this.

Settings>Sound>Do Not Disturb>Priority only allows

You can limit notifications to starred contacts only for calls and also SMS, and then only star the contacts you want to allow.

In Android Do Not Disturb mode can do this. You can set it to "priority only" and define who is the priority contacts. iOS should have a similar function.

Poor man's version of this: set your ringtone to a silent MP3, then apply custom tones to those people you actually want to hear.

You can also make only some email messages cause notifications.

Not sure if there's a better way for gmail, but the way I did it was to have a second gmail account, then create filters that send only important messages to that account. Then in the gmail app you can control notifications on a per-account level.

If I remember correctly how I did this years ago, I made filters to label important messages with correct label and chose different notification (sounds at least) for those labels in gmail app.

It's useful to be able to communicate with people in situations where message notifications are awkward or prohibited. (ie work)

My wife exclusively uses messenger for buying and selling stuff on Facebook. She doesn't need nor want notifications.

There's also the creepy factor. I assume if there is any kind of exploit or corner case that allows an app to abuse privilege on iOS, Facebook is scummy enough to always ship it.

I have all notifications for facebook turned off and just leave messanger untouched. It doesn't nag you unless someone messages you.

It's equivalent to email, but more convenient if you only know the people through facebook. E.g. I admin a facebook group, so admins have a chat to discuss group-related things.

If I don't have notifications enabled it's because I don't want to be distracted. I check my phone often enough, I don't need to immediately stop what I'm doing to read a message.

Equally. When I send a message to someone, I don't want to distract them either. Of course there's no sophistication (e.g. busy mode, notify for messages flagged urgent only) because facebook wants people to drop whatever they're doing and use facebook instead.

In my experience, since Messenger / Hangouts / etc all support persisted, named chats, people start treating them like chatrooms rather than like text messages. I don't want notifications for a chat room (where there's a flurry of conversation that may or may not be directed at me), and in general since I work remote I try to keep the "things that make my phone buzz" list to the bare-minimum, since that list will always include "production outage" which might make me stop mid-step while heading to lunch and turn back around.

Additionally, FB messenger does not allow you to disable "read receipts," it always shows the other party when you have opened a message. Buzzing my pocket and then telling the other person I read their message feels very intrusive to me.

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