There’s a big misconception that if you want to useFacebook Messenger, you must be signed into Facebook itself and access the chatinterface from the Facebook website or the mobile version. Nothing could befurther from the truth. In fact you don’t even need a Facebook account anymoreto use Messenger.
Even if you do have a Facebook account, it isperfectly possible to use Messenger without going anywhere near facebook.com oreven having the Facebook smartphone app installed. I should know. I’ve hadFacebook uninstalled from my iPhone for months but I still use Messenger.
Use The Messenger Smartphone App
If you’re a heavy smartphone user, it makes sense in this case to just use the Messenger app for your phone. It is a very sleek, well-built app and I have had no issues with it whatsoever. It even has games on it where you can play basketball with a phone contact! The iPhone version is here and the Android version is here.
Feb 13, 2020 Apps with Limited Platform Support. There are several apps that are offering very limited platform support. Apple is a limited iOS Messaging app only to its iOS devices and MAC platforms. Whatsapp and Facebook apps are good to chat between phones, but there is no built-in app for Personal Computers. Messenger from FaceBook. Apr 25, 2015 If you’re on a Mac, the ability to have Facebook Messenger conversations right in the Messages app of OS X is really quite nice, the conversations will appear alongside other text messages and iMessages, Google Chat, Yahoo Messenger, or AOL / AIM communications. Once you have Facebook Messenger added to Messages, you will be automatically logged into Facebook Messenger when the Messages app. Apr 02, 2020 Facebook Messenger finally has its own desktop app that lets you message friends and make video calls, just like on the mobile and web versions. It also includes a dark mode, which Facebook has.
I particularly like “Dark Mode” as well as theself-destructing messages (which I will be discussing in another article soon).
Use The Standalone Messenger Website
You may or may not know that Messenger actually has its own standalone website at messenger.com, made by Facebook themselves. Here you can log into your Messenger account and use it without going anywhere near your Facebook timeline or any other time-sucking distractions.
Being browser-based, you can set notifications in yourbrowser for new messages and generally it works and looks exactly the same wayas the smartphone app. The only difference is that there doesn’t seem to be anydark mode, self-destructing messages, and a few other bells and whistlesnormally offered on Messenger such as Facebook Stories.
However if all that doesn’t bother you, messenger.comis an ideal solution if you want to monitor your messages without constantlygetting drawn into the Facebook timeline black hole.
Facebook Messenger App Mac Reddit Account
Mac Users Can Use Messenger For Mac
Mac users have a really nice software possibility with a really original name – “Messenger for Mac”. This is NOT made by Facebook, as made clear by the website which states that it is a “free and open-source project made by fans of Messenger”. But I have used this on my Mac for a very long time and it works wonderfully.
Again there doesn’t seem to be any Dark Mode or otherfeatures normally offered by Facebook Messenger. This is just a stripped downbare-bones version of Messenger you can run on your Mac and have pinned to yourDock. But not everybody wants the latest shiny object.
Use An All-In-One Solution
There used to be a time when you had individual chatclients such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk…..then thetrend moved to combining those services into one platform, so we had Trillian,Pidgin, Adium, and so on.
Even though a lot of these individual chat services have now shut down, we still have things like Messenger, Slack, Skype, Signal, Telegram, and so on. So the “next generation” of one-stop chat platforms might be what you need. Two which I have used and recommend are Franz and Rambox.
The downsides are that they only give you yourmessages, nothing else (obviously you can reply too, but what I mean is don’texpect any cute stickers or anything).
Second, there is no mobile phone version so these arepurely desktop only. But there are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and itis enormously helpful to have everything in the same place if all you need areyour messages.
Facebook is the new Orkut and Facebook Messenger is the new GTalk. It’s how most of your friends, if not you, like to communicate. A lot of people hate that Facebook Messenger on Android and iOS was split from the main app and that you can no longer use the main app to chat. I like the Messenger app and the reason is that it is hands down the best way to chat with my friends. Also, when you’re in the Messenger app, you’re not distracted by Facebook itself. There’s no notifications popping up, no timeline refreshing.
Having this experience on a Mac is surprisingly hard. Chat and Facebook on the web are too deeply intertwined. And before you ask me, yes, I’ve tried IM apps. In the days of GTalk and Yahoo Messenger I used to be a big fan of IM clients. But they just don’t work with Facebook. First, I use Facebook chat on multiple devices. The iPhone and iPad being the prominent ones (the ones where Facebook Messenger does a great job). The thing with IM clients is that the chat history is limited to the app.
So if I’m using an IM client on Mac (Adium was my choice), and I switch to the iPhone for a while, the messages I typed on the iPhone won’t show up in Adium. When I switched to the Mac, I lacked context and for some reason this really annoyed me. I’ve tried a couple of Chrome extensions that try to bring Facebook chat out of Facebook but none of them really worked.
I’m glad to say that I’ve been successful in my pursuit of finding a good Facebook chat client for Mac. One where it’s just about the chat, without any other Facebook distractions. In fact, I found two solutions. One paid, one free (with ads). Read on to find out which might suit you best.
Current for Facebook
Current ($1.99) is not solely a Facebook chat app, even though that’s how I use it. It can run the Facebook’s web interface inside a window, just like any other browser. But it has features like pop-out windows for viewing photos and video, and device-level integration for notifications.
What I like most is its menu bar utility. When you click the menu bar icon for Current, it opens up a drop-down window that contains friend requests, messages, and notifications. Clicking a recent chat opens it in a new window. Each chat gets its own floating window that you can move anywhere on the screen.
I’ve turned off notifications for anything other than messages from Facebook and I don’t open the main window, which loads up the Facebook homepage (it shows Facebook ads and I’m not a big fan of ads on Facebook).
What I love about Current: It’s fast. And stable. After using so many sucky IM clients and hacks for enabling Facebook chat on desktop, I’m surprised how good Current is. I can have four conFacebook Messenger App Mac Reddit Free
current chats and it doesn’t miss a beat. Clicking on a notification brings me to the chat window. There’s no lag anywhere. The app is totally worth the $2 asking price, and more.ChatBook for Facebook
ChatBook is an app expressly built for chat. It’s free and ad supported (though you can pay $1.99 to remove these). While I’ve yet to see an ad, I have gotten annoying pop-ups for upgrading to a pro account. And this happens out of the blue, when you’re not even using the app. Very annoying.
The app replicates the sidebar from Facebook, including the ticker. Which is weird because it’s an app that’s just meant for chatting. But this problem is easy to solve. Just grab the divider between the ticker and friend list and drag it all the way up.
The way the app handles individual chats is also similar to Facebook’s website. They snap to a grid at the bottom of the screen. You can’t pop any windows out, and when a chat window is on screen, so is the friend list. There’s no way to separate them.
The app does have a handy stay-on-top feature. This is a feature I wish Current had. Browsing the web when you have a Facebook chat docked at the corner of the screen is incredibly useful. Although, with ChatBook, you’re looking at wasting about half your screen.
The Winner: Current for Facebook
Current costs $2 but I think it’s totally worth it. When it comes to a pure chatting experience that’s disengaged from the Facebook website but is integrated with the OS, Current is the best.
ChatBook is free but to use it for free you need to put up with annoying pop-ups that come out of nowhere. The Pro version of ChatBook costs $1.99, the same as Current.
Even looking at it from a purely economic perspective, it’s better to pay $2 up front for an app that offers a generally superior experience (along with full Facebook access if you’re interested in using it) than an app that puts you through annoying pop-ups.
How Do You Chat on Facebook?
How do you use Facebook chat on all your various devices? Let us know in the comments below.
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Did You Know
Facebook took 2 years to reach a market audience of 50 million people.