Technology
Whether you’re a Facebook power user or an occasional status-checker, a lighter app is always a good thing for your battery life and data usage. Meet Facebook Lite.
Updated : Mar 12, 2018, 02:05 AM IST
Facebook is easily one of those must-install apps that every phone user has on their home screen. And while this app gives you the full-service Facebook experience of accessing posts, commenting, uploading photos and the like--all in a rich user interface--it does come at the cost of a heavy install (about 35MB on Android and 70.1MB on iOS), and continually high memory and data utilization. In the long run, this can take its toll on both your battery life and your cellular data usage. We’ve all experienced this at some time or another.
Many of us have even gone so far as to uninstall the FB app and default to accessing the web version over the mobile browser. Sure, this isn’t as visually rich an experience, but it certainly gets the job done.
Now, in a bid to reach out to users of entry-level android phones, Facebook has released a ‘lite’ version of their app that consumes significantly lower system resources compared to the full-blown version: its install size is 252KB and both its memory and cellular data usage are a fraction of the primary app.
According to Facebook, this featherweight app is:
Its key features include:
As of writing this, Facebook Lite is available in the Play Store, but only for users in a select few countries (Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zimbabwe).
Even so, you can sideload the app to your phone here in India. Here’s how: