To address this problem, Facebook has released a “lite” version of their app, meant for Android phones with lower-than-average technical specifications. It works pretty much the same as the standard Facebook app, though visually it looks far simpler (which improves performance). It lacks certain bells and whistles, but all of your essentials are there (Messenger, Groups, etc.) While the standard Facebook app is around 70 MB, the lite version clocks in at 262 KB, a staggering difference to be sure. Looking at those numbers, it’s easy to see just how different these two versions of the same application are.
Facebook lite was launched on January 20th, and is currently only available in Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Facebook’s goal is to penetrate lesser-developed regions, and thus lite is meant to take advantage of their 2G cellular infrastructures. You can test drive Facebook lite, so to speak, by either downloading it from the Play Store or acquiring the APK and launching it from your phone. If you use this app on an cutting-edge Android phone, you will notice that it is far less polished than what you’re used to. Indeed, one author stated that it feels almost sluggish to use compared to the standard app.
Still, for an app that is under 1 MB in size, it’s truly impressive what they managed to pack into it. If you try Facebook lite, let us know what you think of it in the comments! Featured photo credit: Facebook/ Johan Larsson via flickr.com
