In addition to the shutting down of Messenger Lite, Meta announced earlier this week that the main Messenger app will be losing support for SMS in September as well. — Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
Meta is discontinuing Messenger Lite, a lightweight version of the its Facebook Messenger app intended for less powerful Android devices, on Sept 18.
Existing users of the messaging app reported being greeted by a notice advising them to switch to the main Messenger app, with the lightweight version of the app having already been removed from the Google Play Store for new users.
The app was originally introduced in 2016, featuring only core parts of Messenger that did not require as much system resources, data, and storage space.
The Messenger Lite app was also launched on iOS, but was similarly shut down back in 2020.
In an email to online publication TechCrunch, a Meta spokesperson said: “Starting August 21, people using the Messenger Lite app for Android will be directed to Messenger or FB Lite to send and receive messages on Messenger.”
In addition to the shutdown of Messenger Lite, Meta announced earlier this week that the main Messenger app will be losing support for SMS in September as well.
"If you use Messenger as your default SMS messaging app for your Android device, please note you will no longer be able to use Messenger to send and receive SMS messages sent by your cellular network when you update your app after September 28, 2023," it wrote in its help centre.
Meta also said earlier this week that it would enable end-to-end encryption in the Messenger app by default later this year and shortly afterwards for Instagram.
