Whether it's a series of blinking ellipsis or an explicit notification that "someone's typing", the messaging feature known as a typing indicator is both a useful tool and a source of anxiety for many people. But knowing more about how it works can at least limit the guessing games that cause us stress.

In celebration of the 2018 World Cup, Facebook has released a colourful new squad of soccer games and bonus features on its Messenger app. If you've got time to kill in-between World Cup matches, here's how to access them on your phone!

Facebook's annual F8 conference is underway and there have been lots of announcements during Mark Zuckerberg's opening keynote. While the social media giant has been pummelled over recent weeks following revelations of massive abuses of their platform and poor oversight of how personal data is handled within the platform they are pushing on with a number of new initiatives, including one that will potentially raise the hackles of privacy watchdogs.

Dear Lifehacker, I've been getting into the Facebook Messenger game Everwing but have run into a problem. The ability to watch ads - which grants access to free trophies, dragons and magic items - has stopped working. This puts me at a serious disadvantage when competing against friends for the weekly high score. Please help!

Did your friends get really quiet all of a sudden? It's not just you -- Facebook Messenger seems to be experiencing a global outage at the moment.

Online commerce is moving from being purely transactional into a more service-driven mode of operation. That means customers won't just visit your online store or service expecting a simple exchange of goods and services for money. They will expect to be able to ask questions and receive a prompt response. Facebook Messenger is becoming a key communication tool for many businesses so the news that Facebook has made it easier to integrate Facebook Messenger into your website is welcome.

Whatsapp users with fingers moving faster than their brain will be happy to know the company's rolling out a new feature that lets you retract that last message, and wipe it from the conversation. Right now the feature is rolling out to certain users.

Android: Once upon a time, Facebook's Messenger app was just a way to send chat message to your friends. Over the years the social network has loaded the app with features such as the ability to send GIFs and play games with your friends. The app has its own personal assistant, and now every time you open it you're also hit in the face with all your friend's Stories. It's a lot of information, and all that information needs a decent amount of bandwidth to work and display on your phone.

We suppose it was only a matter of time. After conquering the instant messaging market with its hugely popular Messenger app, Facebook is bringing ads to the platform. Pretty soon, companies will be able to buy ads which will be inserted directly into the message app. Lovely.

A few months ago, Facebook announced its plans to start showing ads in Messenger. Now, we have a glimpse at what they will look like. They're huge and obnoxious. The moral of the story: Never message brands.

Android: A recent server-side update to the Facebook and Messenger apps caused a bug that rapidly drained users' batteries even more than those apps usually do. Fortunately, it's been fixed, but you'll need to restart your apps.

Earlier this year, Facebook announced it was building bots that would let companies chat with you in Messenger. Now, the company has announced sponsored messages. They're like ads, but for your chat app.

Google's Allo is packed with useful features, not the least of which is Google Assistant, which brings a lot to the table. Even so, it takes a lot to make someone switch from what they're using now, especially if their friends use it. What's your favourite texting app? Are you sticking with it?

Android: Facebook's mobile apps are notorious for hogging battery life and resources. So, you'd probably love a stripped down Messenger app that was only 10MB, right? Well, it exists, but most countries can't use it yet.

PennyCat delivers coupon codes and discounts to you for various online stores before you check out. Fire up Facebook Messenger (or send it a message on Facebook directly), tell it the store you need a code for and the bot will search for you and spit out a code to try.

Chatbots are all the rage, and run the gamut from useless to truly interesting. "And Chill" falls into the interesting category. Simply send it a note via Facebook Messenger and ask it what to watch on Netflix. It churns for a bit, and can turn out surprisingly good results -- as long as you're clear about what you want.

Android: If you've used Facebook Messenger for a long time, you might remember the glory days when it could handle your SMS messages, too. For some reason, Facebook took this feature away, but it's back in the latest Messenger beta.

There was previously a great way for you to check your Facebook messages without actually using Facebook messenger on your phone. It’s not completely dead, but that method has just intentionally been made super inconvenient.

Windows: Facebook launched its new standalone Facebook and Messenger apps for Windows today, bringing native desktop notifications, a faster News Feed and a built-in browser to make sharing articles even easier.