Facebook Lite: everything you need to know about the lightweight version of the social network

Facebook Lite is a lightweight social networking application designed for cheap mobile phones in mind. Not counting a number of features found in the main app, Lite prioritizes reducing battery, data and space consumption, while offering the basic experience to Facebook users.

Launched in 2015, the application was designed for the population of emerging countries like Brazil and India, who often have low-cost cell phones and use unreliable connections. As Facebook's core app grew heavier with new features, the user experience on basic phones and slow connections was profoundly affected. With this audience in mind, Facebook created the lightest version of the application.

Currently, Facebook Lite is available for both Android and iOS. Although the application in general is less pleasant to use, due to its simpler design, it ends up being advantageous in relation to the original in many ways: it takes up less space on the device, works well even on 2G networks, opens faster, among others things.

O Technology Refugee separated below some of the main features of Facebook Lite. Find out what its main advantages are over the conventional application, how to use it and also what you can and cannot do with it.

Click here to download Facebook Lite for Android
Click here to download Facebook Lite for iOS

Facebook Lite: five advantages over the main application

1. Drums

Few applications drain as much battery on smartphones as Facebook. Some tests indicate that uninstalling it can improve battery life by up to 20%, in addition to making other apps work up to 15% better. a host of features and functionality – many of them questionable – the main Facebook application has become a battery-devouring monster.

Facebook Lite, on the other hand, was designed with the intention of not having such a big impact on the battery. By eliminating some features and simplifying the design, Facebook's engineers were able to develop an app suitable for basic cell phones, offering what is expected when accessing the social network – you won't have to give up looking at your account's notifications to save money. battery in smartphone.

2. Data

If you do not change the settings of the application or Android, the Facebook application can consume a good amount of data without your realizing it. He always loads the news feed in the background to ensure that when the user opens the app, he doesn't have to wait long to see friends' updates.

But this has a consequence: consuming data all the time, it ends up doing a damage to data plans, especially in the more limited ones. Facebook Lite does not have this problem: it was designed to reduce consumption when uploading photos and videos at a lower resolution, for example.

3. Space

The conventional Facebook application occupies about 40 MB. Facebook Lite, in turn, requires only 1,3 MB of internal space. It's not much, and even if you don't have that space available, just delete a few photos to get it.

In addition, Facebook Lite shows photos and videos in lower quality, it also takes up less cache space – it is the cell phone memory that is dedicated to application data. Thus, it ends up being an excellent option for those who use devices with low storage space, or for those who have little free space.

4. Instant messaging

For some time now, Facebook has completely removed Messenger from the main application, thus forcing users to have at least two of the company's apps installed to use all the features offered by the social network. Facebook Lite does not have this separation and allows you to chat normally via instant messaging in the same place that you get the news feed, just as it happens on the putador.

Of course, the feature is a little more limited than in the Messenger app, but it's still possible to do the basics. If your goal is simply to reply to messages without a lot of frills, think much more about just using Facebook Lite.

5. Performance

Is Facebook crashing? Does your cell phone choke every time you receive notifications from the app? Does leaving Facebook open make everything else on your smartphone slow? If the answer is yes, then Facebook Lite might be the solution for you.

The application was developed from scratch with the aim of running on simpler devices and it fulfills this role very well. For some features – accessing pages or groups – it manages to be even faster than the original on any device. So even though Facebook Lite is aimed especially at cheaper cell phones, it can be useful for all users of the social network.

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Present and absent resources

As much as the basic Facebook experience is present in the Lite application, it is not possible to do absolutely everything offered by the social network in the lighter version. Many features were removed because they were too heavy, and others work with one limitation or another.

Still, overall Lite leaves little to be desired over the original from a feature standpoint: you can post pictures and status updates, chat with friends, use reactions, and even grab friend stories.

Below we have separated everything that Facebook Lite is capable of doing - and also everything that you will only be able to do using the conventional social network application.