Facebook has been on the rise in terms of functionality over the past few months. The social network now allows users to make video calls, share locations and follow news stories through its app – but that’s not all it’s up to. A new in-app browser, According to Betonmobile, will be launched in the coming weeks, making it easier than ever to access content without leaving the app. The addition follows Facebook’s update to its iOS app last year which added a feature called Instant Articles, allowing users to read the news without opening the browser on their device.
The Share Feature
In addition to being able to navigate the web from within Facebook’s mobile apps, you can also share articles and other web pages from within those apps. It has been revealed that this will be rolled out gradually across all of Facebook’s smartphone apps – including Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp – but at present, there is no timeline for when we can expect this feature on iOS devices. The company will start by rolling out the functionality to their flagship app first, with work beginning today. Initially, this will only be available for certain types of links (such as a photo or video URLs), though Facebook hopes to make it more generalizable as time goes on. Like the Leon app download, this new Facebook update is aimed squarely at keeping people inside the ecosystem, while simultaneously providing a better experience to its over 1 billion monthly active users.
The Camera Feature
Users will be able to find and save web pages through a search bar at the top of their mobile device’s screen. When they tap on Save, they can add the page as an icon that will appear on their home screen so they can easily open it in the future with one tap of their finger. The features also include text and audio-based searches, bookmarking pages for offline viewing, and more ways to organize saved links into folders. Searches work by searching either by title or content and results in load inline within the Facebook In-App Browser. Users can choose to filter out Adult Content or just allow all results to show up by default. One example of how this feature could be used would be if someone was planning a trip to somewhere like Paris and wanted information about flights or hotels, they could type Paris into the search bar and get information on those topics right away.
Security
Users will be able to use Facebook’s built-in web browser from any web page link or enter a URL on their own. The company says that this will make it easier for people to continue browsing if they’ve run out of data or exceeded their monthly data plan on mobile devices with limited internet capabilities. The feature is still being tested and should roll out globally soon enough. It will come as part of a broader effort by the company to make its platform more accessible via mobile browsers.
Saving News Stories
When you’re browsing through Facebook on your phone and see something that catches your eye but needs to get back to scrolling through feeds, you can now save stories with a single tap. When an interesting story pops up on your feed, there will be an option at the bottom of the post that says Save. This will then save the post and create a shortcut so that you can easily find it later when you have time to read more about it. The post will also automatically show up as read in News Feed since you saved it for future reference.
Why this is big news
For years now, Facebook has been struggling with how to keep people within its app while also giving them the ability to easily browse other internet sites. The company believes they have found a perfect balance with this latest update that will allow users to surf around the web on their phones while still being logged into Facebook at all times. This will be an especially useful feature for those who need to log in or create accounts on other websites but don’t want to leave their Facebook account open and unprotected outside of the app. It’s worth noting that this feature will not be available on iOS as of yet because Apple does not allow third-party browsers on its operating system so make sure you’re using Android if you want this update!
Here are some pros and cons of this update:
A lot of apps out there offer some sort of browser function including Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat but none come close to what Facebook is doing with theirs. On top of allowing users to quickly jump over to another site from within their app, it allows for much smoother loading and prevents ads from interrupting your browsing experience like you often see when clicking through links on social media platforms. There are a few drawbacks that could cause problems though including privacy concerns (though these concerns would only apply if someone had malicious intent) as well as issues regarding speed since more scripts mean longer load times although we won’t know just how slow or fast until we get our hands on one.
Is this good or bad news?
This is great news! Users will have an easy way to get back to their Facebook feed while they are browsing other sites or apps on their phones. Plus, this will make it easier for people who want to share content from other places (like Twitter) on Facebook without having to leave the app and go back to Facebook again. The only downside I see with this new browser is that some sites might not work as smoothly with this feature since Facebook needs to make sure that things load quickly and securely for everything to work properly. But overall, this will be a really handy feature! There’s no word yet on when this new browser will be available, but hopefully, it’ll happen soon!
What do you think about this change?
The changes Facebook made to their News Feed were met with mixed reviews and I think this change will have similar reactions. The in-app browser sounds like a good idea because it would give Facebook more control over the browsing experience and not have to rely on third-party apps for the browsing experience. It’s worth noting that Facebook has been neglecting its mobile product as of late so this is an attempt to revitalize its mobile market share.
I do find it interesting that they are choosing yet another way we can interact with them which can be seen as intrusive but if they make navigating their site easier then I’m all for it! We’ll see how users react when the update launches later this week.
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