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...

Facebook today announced that it's rolling out a redesigned, simplified version of the Messenger app on a global basis starting today. Messenger 4, as Facebook is calling it, will refocus on conversations, making it easier to navigate through the app. Instead of nine separate tabs, there will be three tabs, with conversations quickly accessible through the "Chats" tab. Quick access to the...

Two weeks ago, Facebook announced that it discovered a security breach allowing hackers to steal Facebook data from millions of accounts, and today, Facebook shared further data on just what was accessed. To get the Facebook data, hackers took advantage of a security flaw in the social network's "View As" code, a feature designed to let people see what their profile looks like to someone else. ...

Facebook today announced the launch of a new 3D photos feature that uses the Portrait Mode feature of the iPhone and other smartphones with dual lens cameras. Facebook manipulates the Portrait Mode photo to display the scene in 3D, using the depth information between the subject in the foreground and the background. Whether it's a shot of your pet, your friends, or a beautiful spot from...

Facebook today announced "Portal," a new communications device for the home aimed at connecting friends and family members through video chat. There are two models of Portal: the 10-inch base model and a 15-inch "Portal+" model with a display that pivots between portrait and landscape modes. Each device includes AI technology, a Smart Camera, and Smart Sound. The Smart Camera follows where you ...

Facebook-owned social network Instagram is testing a feature that would allow location data collected by Instagram to be shared with Facebook, reports TechCrunch. A prototype Location History feature being tested within Instagram suggests that Location History data collected when Location Services is turned on in the Instagram app will be used to bolster Facebook's ad targeting. From the...

Facebook this morning announced that its engineering team on Tuesday discovered that hackers have exploited a vulnerability in its code, allowing hackers to steal Facebook access tokens for almost 50 million accounts. According to Facebook, hackers took advantage of security flaws in its "View As" code, which is a feature designed to let people see what their profile looks like to someone...

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have left Facebook, explaining in a statement this week that they are taking some time off to "explore our curiosity and creativity again." According to people familiar with the matter speaking to Bloomberg, Systrom and Krieger are leaving due to growing tensions with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom at Instagram ...

Facebook today removed VPN app Onavo Protect from the iOS App Store after Apple decided that it violates App Store data collection policies, reports The Wall Street Journal. Apple earlier this month told Facebook officials that the Onavo app, which serves as a virtual private network, violates June App Store rules that prevent apps from harvesting data to build advertising profiles or contact...

Facebook is contesting a demand from the U.S. government that it break the encryption of its popular Messenger app so that law enforcement can listen in to a suspect's conversations as part of an ongoing investigation into the MS-13 gang. The U.S. Department of Justice's demand is in relation to a case proceeding in a federal court in California that is currently under seal, so public files...

Earlier in the summer, Facebook and Instagram each promised that users would soon be able to access a suite of digital health tools to help them manage their time on the social networks and promote healthier habits. Today, the companies revealed these tools in a press release and confirmed they will be rolling out to all mobile app users "soon." The tools will be found within the settings...

Facebook today announced the global launch of "Watch Party," a desktop and mobile feature revealed in May that allows Facebook Groups to join in and watch videos on the platform together in real time. The videos themselves can be previously recorded or live videos, and members in the Watch Party can comment and send reactions as the video plays. To start a Watch Party, one member (the "host")...

Facebook has announced it is shutting down three apps that the company either launched itself or acquired from other companies over the last four years. "Moves", "tbh", and the Android-only "Hello" all face the chop as part of the company's latest app cull. Facebook says the apps are being shuttered because of low usage. Activity tracking app Moves was popular at the time of its acquisition ...

Facebook has confirmed to TechCrunch that it's testing an ability for its users to "snooze" certain keywords in their News Feed and groups for 30 days. The text-based snooze follows an update from late last year that introduced a way for users to snooze people, pages, and groups for 30 days. In order to start snoozing keywords, users will first have to come across a post that includes the...

Facebook is working on its own in-house time usage insight dashboard, following in the footsteps of Apple's iOS 12 keynote at WWDC, which included the announcement of a "Screen Time" digital health feature. Discovered by Jane Manchun Wong (via TechCrunch), "Your Time on Facebook" shows a list of of how long you've spent on the Facebook app over the last week. This includes the average time you ...

Facebook today announced it is expanding chat translation within Messenger to all users in the United States and Mexico. When you receive a message in a language that is different from your default language in Messenger, Facebook's artificial intelligence assistant M will automatically offer a suggestion to translate the message. When you tap on the suggestion, you will be asked to enable...

In its ongoing efforts to recover from the Cambridge Analytica scandal this spring, Facebook has detailed its collaboration with a design lab focused entirely on privacy and located in Dublin, Ireland. News of the lab comes from Facebook's responses to questions from the United States Senate that were released this week by the Senate commerce committee, and follow CEO Mark Zuckerberg's...

Facebook today announced the launch of a dedicated "Memories" section on its social network, which the company says is designed to be a single place on Facebook to reflect on "the moments you've shared with family and friends." Memories, which is an expanded version of the current "On This Day" feature, provides a look back at posts and photos, friends you've made, and major life events....

Facebook forged an agreement with at least 60 device makers including Apple and Samsung to provide access to large swathes of user data without explicit consent, in a move that may have violated a 2011 Federal Trade Commission consent decree. According to a lengthy report in The New York Times, the social network made the deals so that device makers could use APIs to include Facebook...

Facebook today announced that it will remove its "Trending" section from the web and all mobile devices starting next week, in an effort to "make way for future news experiences." Facebook says that its users have found Trending "less and less useful," leading to the closure of the section, which stacks the latest news articles from the day into various categories. On the web, Trending is...

Recode's annual Code Conference is underway in Rancho Palos Verdes, California this week, and on Tuesday Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel took the stage to discuss the ephemeral app's controversial update, Facebook's copying, and the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal. Specifically, Spiegel is said to have "poured salt on the wound" during his 40-minute interview with Kara Swisher as he called out...