Facebook

Facebook is the quintessential social network, but you may not always feel like being social every time you log in to your Facebook account. Whether it's because you don't have the energy or the time to engage with friends, you do have the option to browse Facebook without anyone knowing you're online. The way to achieve this is by turning off your "Active Status," which can be done within...

Facebook has introduced a tool that lets users export notes and text-based posts to third-party services, making it easier than ever to leave the social network without saying goodbye to your content. The new "data portability types" mean people can now directly transfer their notes and posts to Google Docs, Blogger and WordPress. The updates are extensions to Facebook's existing tool that...

When it came to adding a Dark Mode option to its iOS app, Facebook was late to the game. The social network announced it was coming in June 2020, but dragged its feet for months before eventually rolling it out to mobile users in November the same year, over 400 days after Apple first introduced the feature in iOS 13. Dark Mode‌ has been available on the social network's website for a while ...

Facebook has just made a photo transfer tool globally available that lets account holders easily download all their pictures and videos from the social network to Google Photos. Previously, the majority of Facebook users wanting to download their media from the site had to do it manually. From today, however, users with a Google Photos account can automate the job, and Facebook says more...

After previously only existing as an "Easter Egg" setting, Facebook in April 2019 added a Dark Mode theme as an official display feature of its standalone Messenger app. Facebook says that Dark Mode is designed to provide less harsh brightness in situations where ambient lighting is lower while maintaining contrast and vibrancy. If you have an OLED iPhone, such as an iPhone X, iPhone XS,...

With the release of iOS 11, Apple nixed its built-in integration with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Vimeo, a feature that allowed iPhone and iPad users to store their third-party account information and access it within apps that needed to use those services. The equivalent feature remains in macOS High Sierra, although Apple has removed it completely from macOS 10.14 Mojave, which many...

Earlier in May, news came out that Facebook was working to develop a slate of television shows that would combine short 5-10 minute videos with big-budget, cable-length dramatic series in a new video section on the popular social network. After a delay, people familiar with the company's plans are pointing towards a mid-August debut for the new TV-focused Facebook update (via Bloomberg)....

Facebook is planning to release its own smart speaker to compete with similar connected devices offered by Amazon, Google, and Apple, a report out of Taiwan claimed on Tuesday. However, instead of voice recognition functions in the vein of Siri or Alexa, Facebook's speaker will focus more on displaying visual imagery via a 15-inch touch panel, according to sources in the supply chain. Amazo ...

Home screen ads in Facebook Messenger, which have been in testing in Australia and Thailand since January, will soon roll out to all users in a beta capacity, Facebook announced in a blog post this morning. The Facebook Messenger home screen currently displays recent messages from friends, "Shared Days," Favorites, and friends who are currently online. When ads roll out, this screen will also...

Facebook this week announced it has added several new features to video chatting in its Messenger app for iPhone and iPad. In both one-on-one and group video chats, Messenger users can now add or use animated reactions, filters, effects, and new masks, while Facebook has added a conveniently placed camera icon to take a screenshot of your video chat. For animated reactions, Messenger...

Facebook is today rolling out a long-awaited feature within its iOS app, which will allow users to post GIFs directly into comments using a native GIF button. To share a GIF, users will find the button sitting next to the emoji button in the text field of the Facebook comment window, and from there they can search for a GIF by typing, horizontally scroll through the results, and tap to share. ...

After its first sports-related streams went live early last year, focusing on soccer and hockey, Facebook this week has made inroads into two new categories that will bring fans of eSports and baseball both live and on-demand content (via The Wall Street Journal). Facebook already had deals with five eSports teams who published live and on-demand videos to the platform, but this week the...

Facebook today revealed a new redesign coming to its standalone Facebook Messenger app for iOS and Android, with subtle UI changes that emphasize new features like games, while making it easier to see which friends are online and what notifications have been missed (via TechCrunch). The main UI addition is the introduction of three new tabs atop the app for messages, active friends, and...

The European Commission has fined Facebook $122 million for misleading regulators over its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp. The announcement came on Thursday in a press release in which the Commission said that the social media company had provided "incorrect or misleading information" when it told regulators that it would be unable to link the profiles of users on WhatsApp and Facebook. However, ...

Facebook is actively developing around two dozen television shows with plans to premiere some of them in mid-June, according to a report on Saturday. The social media company has big-budget marquee shows geared towards a TV audience in the works, alongside a tier of less expensive shows that will span about 5 to 10 minutes, according to sources who spoke to Business Insider. The news comes...

Facebook's Instant Games feature, first introduced in November, is now available worldwide. Along with expanding Instant Games worldwide, Facebook is also introducing new functionality first announced at its F8 conference, including turn-based gameplay and additional games. Turn-based gameplay has been a highly requested Instant Games feature. Prior to today, games were single player, with...

Facebook product manager Sara Su today shared a blog post that highlights a test launching on the company's iOS and Android apps, consisting of an update to the "Related Articles" feature found beneath posts shared by your friends and family. For users included in the update, Related Articles will now highlight differing perspectives from separate publications on the same subject mentioned in ...

During its F8 Developers Conference in San Jose, California this week, social media company Facebook revealed an ongoing project in which it aims to launch a product that will allow users to send emails, texts, and post status updates using only their thoughts (via Reuters). Conducted in a new wing it calls "Building 8," Facebook said that any final hardware launch is a few years away, but...

Facebook today announced plans to integrate both Spotify and Apple Music into Facebook Messenger, allowing Messenger users to link to Apple Music or Spotify content for sharing songs and playlists directly within the Facebook Messenger app. Apple has not shared details on how its chat extension will work, but Spotify published a blog post detailing the Spotify chat extension, which will...

Facebook Messenger has allowed users to send money to one another since 2015, but as of today, the chat platform is being updated with a new group payments feature. With Facebook Messenger for the web and Android devices, users can now send and receive money between groups of people, useful for splitting a restaurant bill or pooling money for a group gift. Group payments can be sent in...

Google and Facebook have announced new measures to fight "fake news," a term recently popularized by U.S. President Donald Trump. Google today said it will be making its "Fact Check" label in Google News available everywhere, rather than in the United States only, and expanding the feature to its traditional search results globally in all languages. The "Fact Check" label identifies...

Last week, Facebook launched its new camera-focused update that brought along "Facebook Stories" into the main iOS application. Like Snapchat and Instagram Stories before it, Facebook Stories let users post a picture or video onto their feed, which disappears 24 hours later. Facebook Stories at launch Unfortunately, adoption of Facebook Stories appears to have been fairly low and users have...

Signs of Facebook's silent testing of new features for its mobile app appear to be continuing apace, after some users noticed a rocket ship-shaped icon appearing at the bottom of their news feed. (Image from iOS app via Wired) The icon has been appearing from time to time at the bottom of the iOS app's main news feed icon and displays a different type of feed made up of posts, articles,...

Facebook today announced that it will begin allowing its users to generate their own crowdfunding campaigns directly within the social network's mobile app, meant as a way "to raise money for themselves, a friend, or someone or something not on Facebook, for example a pet." Any user 18 or older will be able to set up a personal fundraiser, which Facebook hopes will be a way for people to more...

Facebook today is officially rolling out its long-in-testing upgrade to the main Facebook mobile app on iOS and Android, bringing a number of changes focused on the addition of an all-new camera, filters, themed effects and "Facebook Stories." The company's 24-hour post Snapchat clone was reported to have launched a few weeks ago, but a Facebook spokesperson contacted MacRumors at the time and con...

Following in the footsteps of Google Maps and Find My Friends, Facebook today announced that users will be able to track their friends and family within Facebook Messenger using a new feature it calls "Live Location." The hour-long location sharing feature is beginning to roll out globally today, and Facebook said it should help friends coordinate with one another when making plans, as well...