Facebook’s mobile app isn’t as bad as it used to be, but it still has its fair share of problems: it’s slow, drains your battery and requires all sorts of permissions. Want something better? The Facebook mobile site is nearly identical… without all the crap.
This tip is old as dirt, but we forgot about Facebook’s mobile site somewhere along the line, and ITworld reminded us about it today. If you’re constantly frustrated by the Facebook app, here’s what you need to do to get rid of it.
Android users:
- Open the Play Store app and search for Facebook. Click the Uninstall button on its main page.
- Open your browser of choice and head to facebook.com. Log in, then press the Menu button and save Facebook’s home page to your bookmarks.
- Head to your home screen and long-press on an empty space. Choose Shortcuts from the menu, select Bookmark, and choose the Facebook bookmark you just created. Now you have a Facebook shortcut on your home screen that takes you to a faster, permission-free, more battery-friendly Facebook.
iPhone users:
- Press and hold on the Facebook app and click the “X” to uninstall it.
- Open Safari, head to facebook.com, and log in.
- Click the “Share” button in Safari’s bottom bar and choose “Add to Home Screen”. Name it whatever you want, then tap “Add”. Now you have a Facebook shortcut on your home screen that takes you to a faster, more battery-friendly Facebook.
iPhone users won’t notice as big of a change as Android users do, but it’s worth a shot if your Facebook app seems slow.
If you absolutely need notifications, ITworld recommends turning on email notifications instead, which should help a bit with the battery problems on Android. How sucky Facebook’s app is depends on your phone (the mobile site is noticeably faster on my Galaxy Nexus), so if you find that Facebook’s app is satisfactory, then obviously you have no need for this tip. But if you can’t stand to use the official Facebook app one second longer, you’d be surprised how good the mobile site is. Apart from a few gestures and animations, you’ll barely notice a difference.
Twitter and Facebook Are Killing Your Phone Battery [ITworld]
Comments
4 responses to “Use Facebook’s Mobile Site For A Faster, Battery-Friendly Experience”
If you’re on Telstra (or I assume other participating ISPs) you can access 0.facebook.com via your data (not wifi) connection for an essentially image free experience.
The reason I’ve always used the mobile sites is you get rid of (or at least massively reduce) the risk of Facebook accidentally (or intentionally) siphoning or synchronising your contact info to “improve your experience”. (ala http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57464415-93/facebook-e-mail-mess-address-books-altered-e-mail-lost/)
also on the web it doesn’t log the last time you where active on mobile ( if you have that feature enabled )
I’m having an issue with my teenage daughter using a lot of mobile data with facebook, can someone confirm if using the mobile site instead of the iphone app will use less data ? I would assume 0.facebook.com would as it’s image free ?
That’s the Facebook touch site (x.facebook.com), not the mobile site (m.facebook.com).