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Best chat aggregators in 2023
Staying in touch with all of your friends can mean using multiple apps. These chat aggregators aim to put your conversations in a single place.
It can be difficult to keep up with conversations across multiple apps. It’s easier to lose track of a conversation if you have to open a different app just to see it. A chat aggregator, an app that’s designed to keep all your conversations from the best messaging apps in one place, can help with that by integrating multiple chat services into a single place. Putting all your conversations in one window on a desktop or laptop can help keep you focused and minimize distractions. You can even set up workspaces in some apps so you can have your most important apps when you need them.
You could soon be unable to chat with your Facebook friends on Instagram
The cross-platform chat feature is reportedly going away, having been rolled out with much fanfare less than three years ago.
Meta is reportedly all set to end the cross-app messaging support between Instagram and Facebook Messenger. The feature was rolled out back in 2020 with much fanfare when Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announced the cross-platform messaging feature, making it easier for Instagram users to message their Facebook friends, and vice-versa. However, that feature is now seemingly going away after less than three years.
Meta updates its privacy policy to make it easier to understand how it uses your data
Meta is updating its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service to make it easier to understand its data practices. Read on.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has announced new changes coming to its privacy policy. The changes, Meta says, are designed to more clearly convey to users how the company uses collected information.
EU could force WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage and others to offer interoperability
EU's proposed Digital Markets Act could force large messaging platforms like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Messenger to offer interoperability.
The EU has agreed upon new laws to limit the market power of big tech. Its new Digital Markets Act (DMA) aims to blacklist anti-competitive practices and force popular messaging services like WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage, and others to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms.
Facebook Messenger and Instagram add BTS theme and Watch Together feature
Facebook has announced near features for Messenger and Instagram, including a Watch Together feature and a BTS comic book theme.
Facebook Messenger and Instagram have extended the scope of their newly joined-up messaging service with some new features, including one involving South Korean boy-band sensation BTS (for our regular readers, that’s the band providing the song for the current global Samsung Galaxy S20 FE advertisement).
[Update: Rolling Out] Facebook Messenger "Rooms" are video chats for up to 50 people
Facebook Messenger is adding a new feature called "Rooms", which will allow you to connect to video chats of up to 50 people in a fashion similar to Zoom.
I'm sure I don't have to mention again why most of us are forced to stay home: we all know there's a pandemic out there and that we need to stay safe, follow the World Health Organization's advice, and practice social distancing at all times to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But practicing social distancing does not mean that we have to be cut off from our friends and acquaintances. Most in-person meetings and classes have been replaced by video chats of multiple people at the same time. The most common choice for that became Zoom in the past few weeks, but the app has also been plagued by some privacy and security issues these days.
[Update: In Beta] Facebook tests a screen sharing feature in its Messenger app
Facebook Messenger is testing out screen sharing feature, letting users share the content that is displayed on their phone with other users. Read on!
Facebook Messenger has been the standalone app for chatting on Facebook's primary social media platform, so much so that even the primary Facebook for Android app does not even let you converse with people privately without redirecting you to install Messenger. Messenger has its own merits and demerits, but Facebook is constantly exploring new ways to get users hooked onto its chatting app and use it as their primary form of communication. The newest feature that Facebook is working on for Messenger is enabling screen sharing functionality.
How to enable dark mode in Facebook Messenger now [Root]
If you can't wait for the official release and want to enable the dark mode in Facebook's Messenger, we have some good news for you.
The redesign of Facebook Messenger has been in the works for a very long time. The official rollout (for real this time) started just a few days ago, and users' opinions vary ever so much. I like the new interface personally, but that's just me. If you remember, Facebook also showed off a dark mode a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, the dark mode is not yet final, so it didn't make it to the redesign. The good news is we have found a way to enable it unofficially.
[Update: Rolling out] Facebook shows off "simpler" Messenger redesign with dark mode
Facebook finally released a long-promised Messenger redesign, which features dark mode, less cluttered interface and overall improved experience.
The redesigned version of popular messaging application Facebook Messenger was first announced back in May at the F8 developer convention. It is no secret that Messenger has never been RAM or battery-friendly. That is one of the bigger reasons why many people started using third-party wrappers and other alternatives. Facebook promised us they'd fix the problem, and they finally delivered. The redesign of the Messenger is now rolling out.
Facebook Messenger is testing autoplaying video ads
Autoplaying videos ads are being tested in Facebook Messenger. The advertisements have started to roll out to Messenger users already.
Facebook has always been infamous for serving loads of advertisements across all of its platforms and applications. In addition to all of the other places Facebook sells advertisements already, about 18 months ago, Facebook Messenger was added to the list.
Smart Reply in Android Messages rolling out to some non-Project Fi users
Finally! Smart Reply is no longer a Project Fi exclusive feature! From now on, anyone with the latest version of Android Messages can use it.
Google released Smart Reply for Android Messages in September of last year. Smart Reply is a predictive text feature, which currently works in apps like Allo, Gmail, Inbox and from now on, Android Messages too. Functionality gives you the ability to answer messages by selecting pre-written responses based on machine learning an AI. Unfortunately, until recently it was only available for Project Fi users. As it turns out, Google decided to expand this feature to other carriers as well.
X Messenger Privacy Adds a Ton of Privacy Options to Facebook Messenger
An Xposed Module called X Messenger Privacy adds a ton of useful privacy features to the Facebook Messenger app—some free and some not free.
Just a few days back, XDA Senior Recognized Developer rovo89 released an official update to his Xposed Framework—bringing compatibility to Android 7.0/7.1 Nougat. Since then, many developers have shown renewed interest in updating their Xposed Modules. While we were covering the open-source, fully themeable Frost for Facebook application the other day we realized that Facebook's other half—the Messenger application—had very little third-party support. Hence, we decided to turn to Xposed for some Facebook Messenger add-ons and we found that X Messenger Privacy has recently been updated. It's a Module for the privacy-conscious among us, and it offers a plethora of options to safeguard your use of the app.
How Google Detects and Warns about Premium SMS Messages
Google uses a publicly view-able database to detect and warn before a user sends a premium SMS message. This database is constantly updated by Google.
Billions of text messages are sent each year. Though the service is incredibly dated by modern technological standards, the SMS has persisted as among the most popular methods of communication. Google is pushing hard to get carriers on board with a new standard known as Rich Communication Services (RCS), but with so many competing messaging interfaces it will take some time before the ubiquitous text message is put to rest.