14 DAY TRIAL // Two years ago, Facebook announced a new application that incorporated key features, but came in a slimmer figure. Facebook Lite was initially launched in India and the Philippines, but the app made its way to multiple other countries.
Facebook Lite has had quite the evolution over the past two years and it now passed the 200 million users mark, according to Mark Zuckerberg. The application reached 100 million users in March 2016 and it seems that it doubled its size in less than a year.
Chief Operating Officer at Facebook Sheryl Sandberg states that Facebook Lite is helping businesses grow and reach customers who don’t benefit from speedy Internet connections. Facebook Lite has offered Facebook the means to reach more people and connect them through the social network.
Facebook Lite, an app for slow Internet connections
Facebook Lite is a solution for those who use less capable phones and have less bandwidth and slower Internet connections. The app has most of the features that you would find in the regular Facebook app, including notifications for new posts and likes.
It has a size of just 2MB and works on 2G network speeds. The app is compatible with smartphones running at least Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but it doesn’t have some features that regular Facebook users might enjoy. Facebook Lite doesn’t allow users to react to posts and some say that the app lags and takes a lot of time to upload pictures.
The app also has lots of permission requests and some users think the app is overall boring and outdated. Nonetheless, Facebook Lite was designed to address the needs of users who experience some limitations in terms of device and Internet performance. Just today, Google listed the YouTube Go application on the Play store, a version of YouTube’s main app which lets users save and watch videos offline.