Facebook Messenger for Windows Now Officially Available
Facebook Messenger leaked back in December, and Facebook decided to keep the link active that was pointing to the program's download. Today, Facebook is officially releasing Messenger for Windows, promising that Mac users will get their version of the messenger application soon as well.
Facebook Messenger basically gives you an option to chat with your Facebook friends and contacts without having the Facebook.com website open at all.
Installation of the program should not be a problem, as it is silent and without settings that need to be made. The Messenger is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows. Once installed, you can start it and enter your Facebook login details to get started.
The Messenger opens the main interface that combines Facebook's header with the news ticker and chat sidebar after log in.
Here you see the friend requests, messages and notifications on top, followed by the live ticker that updates whenever a friend likes, posts or befriends someone on Facebook. This way you see more news and contacts available for chat.
You can start a chat with a left-click on one of your contact's names. A search is provided to find a specific contact. Only five friends are displayed by default in the interface. You can use the attach to sidebar button to attach the interface to the right side of your monitor, so that it takes up all vertical screen estate there.
Facebook Messenger stores your log in information unless you sign out before you close the application. If you do not sign out, you are automatically logged in again when you start the application again at a later time. You can log out of Facebook with a click on the settings button next to search, and the selection of log out. Here you can also go offline, which may be useful to block chat messages in case they are too distracting or unwanted at that time.
You can chat with multiple friends at the same time. Each friend is displayed in a tab in the chat interface.
The biggest advantage of Facebook Messenger is that it provides access to chat and notifications in a much smaller window. If you are keeping your web browser open only to chat on Facebook, or prefer your chat window and notifications to be visible all the time, then the Messenger app might be for you.
Keep in mind though that it does not support all the features just yet. You cannot chat with groups, do video calls or edit settings other than the settings mentioned above. If that does not bother you, Facebook Messenger for Windows might be just for you.
Update: Facebook Messenger for Windows is currently only compatible with Windows 7. Facebook is however working on versions for Vista and XP.
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Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.
Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).
For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.
You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.
If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.
AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI
Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.
Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.
Don’t tell me!
Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!
Bring in the dictatorship!!!
And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe
GateKeeper ?
That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!
But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!
@The Dark Lady,
@KeZa,
@Database failure,
@Howard Pearce,
@Howard Allan Pearce,
Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.
The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
>> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
How to display only articles by a specific author:
Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033
By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
>> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme
We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.
“Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”
Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.