Facebook Lite is a basic version of the service for the developing world

After months of testing, facebook lite is officially launching a new app—but you won't find it in the U.S.

Facebook Lite, developed for Android devices, is a stripped-down version of the social network designed to run on the lower-end phones found in the developing world.

Facebook has more than a billion users, but many of those people lack high-end phones and consistent connections. Facebook Lite uses significantly less data than the normal app and works in all network conditions. The bare-bones version of the social network is just a 1MB download—it's designed with quick and easy installs in mind.

The core of Facebook remains intact in Facebook Lite: the app offers access to the News Feed, status updates, photos, notifications, and other key features. Visually, it looks very similar to its full-featured counterpart.

Facebook

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has estimated that 3.2 billion peoplewill be online by the end of 2015, the vast majority of them using slower connections than the 3G and 4G that are nearly ubiquitous in the U.S. The ITU found that while 95 percent of the world can access 2G, only 70 percent can connect to 3G. As these users arrive on the Web, Facebook wants to be there, holding the door open.

Following test runs earlier this year in Asia and Africa, Facebook has made its Lite app available to download through the Google Play Store in countries across Asia. Regions of Latin America, Africa, and Europe will be able to access the app in the coming weeks.The launch of Facebook Lite fits into CEO Mark Zuckerberg's broader plan to reach out to developing regions as they begin to flip the switch and connect to the Web. Zuckerberg has been helping to expand Internet access across the globe with his Internet.org initiative. The project has received backlash for the way it undermines net-neutrality principles, but that hasn't stopped Internet.org from spreading Facebook to new places. The social network is now synonymous with "internet" in some parts of the world.

Facebook Lite app launched a stripped-down

facebook lite has launched a stripped-down version of its app aimed at the huge potential user base in emerging markets.

The social media giant confirmed to CNBC that it was testing the Android app in January, and was now rolling it out across countries in Asia, followed by parts of Latin America, Africa and Europe.

Facebook Lite takes less than 1 megabyte of storage space on a phone -- substantially less than the standard app, which uses up around 25MB of storage.

The new app is designed to load quickly in areas with slow mobile internet connection.

"In many areas, networks can be slow and not able to support all the functionality found in Facebook for Android. Facebook Lite was built for these situations, giving people a reliable Facebook experience when bandwidth is at a minimum," Vijay Shankar, product manager for Facebook Lite, wrote in a blog post.

Users will be able to do simple tasks such as post status updates and pictures, get notifications and scroll through their newsfeed. Viewing video will not be possible, however, as it requires too much data.

The move comes amid a continued push by Facebook into the emerging markets, highlighted by its Internet.org project, which gives users in certain countries access to some mobile services for free.

The mobile user base in emerging markets is growing fast, particularly in the smartphone space where a number of low-cost devices have been launched.

Almost 80 percent of smartphone subscriptions added between 2015 and 2020 will be from Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, according to Ericsson.

Facebook already has a high user base in some emerging markets – Indonesia, for instance, is currently the third-largest market for mobile Facebook users worldwide.

Meanwhile, by the end of 2016 India is expected to surpass the U.S. as having the largest population of mobile phone Facebook users, according to research by eMarketer.

Facebook Lite is a smaller version of the social networking app made for developing countries and markets.

After first being tested in a few countries in January, Facebook is now officially launching a new and smaller Android version of its social networking app called Facebook Lite. The app is designed specifically for use in countries where the wireless networks are slow and thus not able to handle all of the features in the regular Android version of the app. Facebook states:

facebook lite was built for these situations, giving people a reliable Facebook experience when bandwidth is at a minimum.Facebook Lite is less than 1MB so it is fast to install and quick to load. It includes Facebook's core experiences like News Feed, status updates, photos, notifications and more.

The rollout of Facebook Lite will begin first in a number of countries in Asia, and later it will become available in parts of Latin America, Africa and Europe.

Zuckerberg announces Facebook Lite app

People living in some of the most remote parts of the world will now be able to quickly post updates to their Facebook accounts.

Mark Zuckerberg announced the release of the facebook lite app on Thursday, which is designed to work fast even on slow mobile networks commonly found in developing nations. The app will first roll out in Asia, then in the subsequent weeks to Africa, Latin America and Europe.

"We built Facebook Lite to be faster, more reliable and very data efficient even when internet bandwidth is at a minimum," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook (FB, Tech30) post. "The app is less than 1 MB in size and takes just a few seconds to download."

Facebook didn't mention when the app would come to the U.S., but did say it would be available in the Google Play Store, according to the post.

More than 1 billion people access facebook lite on mobile devices globally, the company said.

Facebook Lite Apk for Android, iOS and Windows Phone

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facebook lite

Facebook Lite hits 100 million users in 9 months. Here’s how.

Facebook today announced that facebook lite, its app for the data conscious, has officially clocked 100 million monthly active users.

In India, Facebook has 142 million users, with 69 million using it every day. 133 million of these users access the app on their phone.

Facebook claims that the Lite app is the fastest growing Facebook app yet, and its goal is to provide the best user experience regardless of the type of device a person is using or their connection.

we know that cost of data and overall data usage is extremely important to people.

The announcement was coupled with details on how the social network engineered the app on its blog. “The details are meant to help others who want to create apps in emerging markets,” explains Vijay Shankar, product manager of Facebook Lite. “We’ve spent a lot of time figuring it out.”

After months of research in Indian cities, the Facebook team noticed certain trends. “Through our research in emerging markets and in seeing how people use our apps, we know that cost of data and overall data usage is extremely important to people,” it explained.

Light and frugal

The goal of the Lite app is to have the APK file (the Android application package) take up less than 1MB and use as little data as possible, all while maintaining a high quality user experience.

The average app is about 20MB in size and can take more than thirty minutes to download on a 2G network, Facebook explains.

The client – what a user sees on an Android phone – requests resources from the Facebook Lite server only when needed. The server then fetches data from Facebook’s backend services. This means more features can be added without ever increasing the size of the super light app and resources can be cached and cleared as they’re used.

The app runs a custom message protocol built on TLS (transport layer security), instead of the more commonly used HTTPS. The app also connects to a single server instead of multiple ones.

“This design opens the door for a lot of optimizations that help with reducing data usage and performing on 2G networks,” says Facebook.

Using a single server makes things faster because it can memorize certain data patterns. A press release from Facebook cites an example of a user refreshing their newsfeed by pulling their app screen down. If the only difference is a few extra likes or a new comment, the server sends only that information to the app’s user.

Facebook also figured out that most of its current app usage comes from images, so the server identifies the exact screen size of the user’s phone and resizes images to fit its requirements. This means no image is ever too large, wasting bandwidth to no good effect.

“These design choices help Facebook Lite achieve best-in-class performance metrics on interactions like login, start-up time, pull-to-refresh, and image-loading times on low-bandwidth intermittent networks,” it explains.

New approach

The Lite app was tested on Augmented Traffic Control, a project launched by Facebook to simulate varying network conditions, such as what a person faces when accessing the web on a patch 2G network. It was developed at the Internet.org innovation lab, a space for developers to test out how their apps work in different parts of the world.

The architecture of this app is based off of another version of its app launched two years ago known as “Facebook For Every Phone”.

While Facebook had first envisioned getting into people’s phones – and hearts – by offering partial free internet in partnership with Indian telco Reliance, the lack of internet options it gave people turned them off. Known as Internet.org before being rebranded Free Basics, the scheme was banned from India last month for violating net neutrality.

Facebook Lite is a bit more considerate in that it empowers people based on their existing network situations instead of exploiting them for a scheme that does not give them the full internet. The app is most popular in emerging economies, including India, Brazil, and the Phillipines.

“People who aren’t restricted to 2G networks are also using Facebook Lite,” Vijay says. “We noticed that they’re using it while they travel. It’s for the data conscious.”

Facebook Lite2.0

facebook lite for weaklings

If your addiction for social media (namely Facebook) has surpassed the level of technology of your smart phone, then you might be a bit frustrated. It is understandable. Over the years, Facebook has added quite a lot of features that might tax lower end mobile systems.
The good thing is, you probably don't need half of these features. So in case I'm right, or your phone is ready to fall apart, Facebook Lite is for you!

Facebook Lite features a very spartan interface. Luckily, everything is more or less where you'd expect it to be. The Feed, Requests, Messages and Notifications buttons are on the top.

Every other section such as, Friends, Groups or Photos can be found in the Menu tab. The interface is bare bones, containing only a minimum of pictures and separator lines, but maintaining the classic blue look.

Facebook Lite continues to keep you updated. New stories are highlighted while you view the news feed and Android notifications will pick up on them as usual.

Features

• Access to all of Facebook's sections

Pros

• Very light on resources
• Has all major features

Cons

• Looks dated, but it's to be expected

Conclusion

There's nothing special about Facebook Lite, except that it's only 1 MB in size and can relieve you aging phone from handling Facebook exclusively.