Facebook and Messenger Apps for Android Causing Battery Drain, Users Report

Social media giant Facebook's official mobile app for Android (as well as Messenger) is slowing smartphones by 15 percent and is consuming excess battery power, a media report citing users said on Tuesday.

The hugely-successful apps were hit with controversy this week after a number of reports showed they drained battery life and slowed phones, express.co.uk reported Monday.

Facebook fans discussed the impact of the apps on Reddit, with one user publishing a chart to show the drain caused by them, the report said.

It was found during the test that involved launching 15 popular apps in succession. Each app loaded significantly faster when Facebook was not installed on the same smartphone.

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/f...oid-causing-battery-drain-users-report-797489

 

All the spying, data harvesting, and other intrusions they do naturally drain battery life significantly faster than normal use. For that and so many other reasons, you just shouldn't use it on your phone as an app. Use it from a regular PC, through a remote connection to a PC over a VPN, or log on with chrome for android or safari for iphone/ipad to use it that way instead.

 

I had Facebook messenger installed on my phone because I need to keep in touch with my son who worked oversea, but other than that, I don't have a need for it. I hate it when they forced us to download the app in order to answer messages. I hope they will do away with it soon.

 

Facebook really should have never changed to force that on people IcyBC, I agree. You do have some options and alternatives, though. Since you're using a mobile phone or device and your son is too, you can always use the free video chat and messaging service called ooVoo available from http://www.oovoo.com to stay in touch with him. It only runs when you tell it to for communicating, and it works universally with PC, Mac, Android, and iPhones. There are some other nice free ones out there, but this one has been good for communicating overseas and out of state for me for several years. You can do free text messages, voice calls, video calls, leave messages like an answering machine, and a bunch of other stuff you might like. I like it better than Skype.

 

I just upgraded my Android phone and I never have problems with those apps. I'm not on them that often, but it's just when I'm watching YouTube videos for a while that it drains it, and even then it's not horrible.

 

Uhm, I always thought so. I jut hate it that when you install a certain app or game the battery seems to drain so fast, that happened to me recently. It must be all those spying options you mentioned, I've always wondered why certain apps need access to our pictures and contacts, so shady.