Despite the wide array of functionality that most smartphones offer these days, the one app that most users spend the most amount of time using is Facebook. Whether you have a flagship with an octa-core processor or a discount device with specs that can’t keep up with your fingers, the social networking app is most likely installed, logged in and seeing heavy use.

Android enthusiasts have long suspected that the app, which has significant resource demands, affects smartphone performance in a negative way. But these claims have been largely anecdotal and lacking in validation. Over the last week or so, users of the social discussion website Reddit, prompted by an Android Central blog post have been attempting to test the effect Facebook’s app has on their smartphones’ performance and battery life. The user who started the discussion, who goes by the name ‘pbrandes_eth’, claimed a performance improvement of 15 per cent on an LG G4 as measured by the DiscoMark benchmarking tool. Other users followed with their own tests, confirming the original results in each case.

A conclusive statement on whether Facebook slows down smartphones significantly will require extensive testing beyond the capabilities of lay users. But confirmation is what you need if you’re looking to fight a court case. If you just want a slightly faster smartphone today, uninstalling Facebook is a quick and easy solution.

Options abound And thanks to the plethora of alternative means available to accessing the social networking site, the transition is guaranteed to be almost entirely painless as well.

For those looking who’d rather not stray too far from home base, Facebook has a lighter, faster option for Android called Facebook Lite. The app, which is intended for users who are on low-bandwidth networks, has a miniscule footprint which is less than a megabyte. It also integrates Messenger functionality into a single interface, meaning that you can delete Facebook’s chat app as well.

In addition to Lite, there are several dozen developers offering more resource-efficient Facebook clones on the Play Store. These apps typically stuff the Facebook web interface into the framework of a native app, providing convenient one-button launch and notifications. The best of the lot is Metal, which also packs in a Twitter interface and has an excellent dark mode.

However, for those users who only check their news feeds occasionally, even these apps are unnecessary because their core functionality is available directly from the Chrome browser. Facebook’s web interface is very functional and far more usable than their app due to the absence of auto-playing animations and video. Chrome also supports notifications even if the browser is closed, so you don’t have to worry about missing out on updates. In addition, it does not support any of the Facebook features which play fast and loose with your private data such as continuous contact upload, location syncing and so on.

The comprehensive nature of the Facebook app’s feature set – which contributes to its bulk – means that these alternatives will come up short once in a while. However, they will be adequate for most people, most of the time. And they will also give your device a small performance boost that might keep it out of the digital graveyard for a while longer.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW