Facebook Messenger Lite, the excellent, cruft-free of Facebook’s chat app that focuses on the essentials, is expanding to the US, UK, Canada, and Ireland. The Android-only app was originally launched so that users could access Messenger in areas with sluggish mobile connectivity.
But even outside of its intended markets, Android users have taken to sideloading Messenger Lite as an escape from the growing ball of features that the main Android and iOS app has become. Sadly, there’s no such thing as Messenger Lite for iPhones — and TechCrunch reports that Facebook has no plans to release it. You can download the Android app here.
Messenger Lite is strictly focused on messaging and doesn’t include recent additions like stories, Snapchat-ish selfie lens effects, or games. If you’re annoyed by all that extra stuff on regular Messenger, the Lite version is for you. But the slimmed down Messenger Lite is also missing things that some people might find useful like chat heads and video calling. Either way, now you can give it a shot and see if you prefer the sticks-to-the-basics design of Lite or find yourself going back to the bloated Messenger app.