Facebook update: latest news
Facebook, variously celebrated and maligned over the years, continues its slow march towards social media dominance. Every new Facebook update, poorly detailed and incremental though most may be, adds weight to the beast as it slouches forwards towards its goal. Find out the latest Facebook update news right here.
February 25, 2016: new reaction emoji
Facebook has, at last, bowed to pressure to include more than a simple Like button. The ways in which you can respond to a post without the necessity of actual language have now expanded to include a Love emoji, amplifying your positivity dramatically.
There's also Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry, which compentently cover the gamut of human emotional responses to stimuli. Facebook's Zuckerburg remains keen to limit users' abilities to express negativity, however, as the much-requested Dislike button remains elusive. Luckily we have words to express just how much we dislike what our peers are sharing, so we can just continue leaving mean-spirited comments, instead.
To use these new emoji, a long press on the thumbs up icon will load a list of them. Move your thumb over to the emoji that most accurately reflects how a certain post makes you feel and release. Feel better?
January 28, 2016: Facebook adds live-streaming feature
If you've ever been enjoying yourself out there in the world so much that you thought it might be nice if all your sort-of-friends on Facebook could see exactly what you're doing at that moment, well, today is your lucky day.
Facebook has been testing the ability to share live video through its platform since December, and it hasn't taken long to get the feature out on a wide scale. US iPhone users can now live stream video through Facebook whenever they fancy doing so, and Facebook plans to roll this out to users around the world "over the coming weeks."
By tapping on Update status and selecting the video icon, you can add a little description and get that video up and running. You'll then be able to see how many people are tuned in, who they are, and what they're saying about it.
In a blog post, it was also said that the feature is being worked on for Android and should be along "soon".
Update: Mark Zuckerberg gave word to CNET that the live video streaming feature is now rolling out to Android users in the US. No word yet on when those outside the US can expect to see the feature on their devices, but we will update this page once we know more.
January 19, 2016: experimental support for Facebook over Tor added
Tor is the world's anonymity network of choice, providing what is called onion routing, a secure method of encrypting and transferring data over the internet. It was first offered official support by Facebook in 2014, when Facebook created its own Tor onion address.
Now, Facebook has expanded this support to Android. An experimental new feature has been added to the Facebook app allowing for access to Facebook over Tor via the Orbot proxy app, which is freely available on the Play Store.
You should be able to enable the feature by going to App settings in the Facebook app, where there should be a new preference switch called Use Tor via Orbot.
October 26, 2015: notification tab overhauled
The notification tab in the Android app received a major overhaul, and now displays customizable information such as friends' milestones, sports scores and upcoming events. In additional, if you enable Location History within the app, you can add information on things that are happening in your local community, weather updates and movie showings, among other things.
Note that this new feature has only so far made an appearance in the US.
Are you a keen Facebook user? If so, how do you find the app, and have recent updates solved any issues you have with it? Let us know in the comments.
Does the author favor a dislike button? I agree with Zuckerberg on this one. People can go be a dick on YouTube. Nobody logs onto fb expecting a bunch of negative crap. If there's a dislike button people will spend hords of time asking their friends why they disliked something. People are to lazy and dense to write a well thought out constructive criticism. As it stands if one doesn't like something they just move along to something they do like as it should be.
SAY NO TO FACEBOOK!
Facebook is cool.
New reaction emoji's Are really cool
I hate all social media especially Facebook. It is the cancer of society.
Facebook never of course
Can i disable the app without messing up my phone? I hate that it's part of the bloatware on the S6. It has crazy access to all of your personal info
"Can I disable the app without messing up my phone" Try using package disabler pro from the play store.
You're not suggesting that fb wants or needs anything from you are you? Because it doesn't. You're just not that interesting. All of those permissions are to allow fb to carry out all of its functions. That's it and that's all. There are litterally over a billion users of fb and the owner has over a billion dollars it doesn't and he doesn't need any of your crap nor does it or he want it. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Facebook it the most consumed data and storage for my phone
Interesting...
Instead of raming untold mb into this Facebook monster they should get things right what there doing now? ie everytime i download a HD video they seem to be very good at washing out most of them, soon time for the uninstall button!
Facebook is similar to Trump. Makes billions of dollars a year, nobody really trusts him and can be the most annoying thing in your day. Despite this, everyone listens to what he says, whether it's spot on or outlandish. :)
It occurs to me that Facebook is co-opting Apple's strategy. Build a walled garden and tell people that it just works. Facebook is ALL the Internet (that FB thinks you need).
Facebook is ALL the apps.
Facebook is your phone (though that went less well than they hoped.
I suppose there are people for whom those statements are sufficient. But they aren't reading this site. The more FB does, the less I like what they're doing. Just like Apple.
Facebook app is huge in size & consumes a lot of space in phone memory. They should do something about the size.
I‘ll update it now~
fb should be banned
where is profile video & live stream they promise.