Download Facebook Lite Android Archives

It's well nigh impossible to be online and not encounter Facebook in some form. Facebook claims to have 2.6 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social networking app by far. And even if you don't use Facebook on a regular basis, enough apps let you use your Facebook login credential to sign into their apps to where it might make sense to keep Facebook installed on your mobile device.

It's not that hard to download Facebook. The mobile version of the social networking service is available from the major app stories, with one notable exception. Earlier this year, Facebook for Windows left the Microsoft Store, as Facebook says that Windows users should access the service via a browser. (Facebook for Mac is a browser-based experience, too.)

If you've got a mobile phone, though, there's still a dedicated Facebook app you can download. We'll show you how to download Facebook for free and what to expect from the app once you've got it installed.

Where to download Facebook

Whether you use Android or iOS, there's a version of Facebook for your phone or tablet. For desktops and laptops, you'll need to use your favorite web browser to log in to the service. The same user name and password for your desktop experience will also work on the mobile app.

If you've got a less powerful phone or don't want to consume much data when you're using a cellular connection, there's a Facebook Lite version for Android. This is a stripped-down version of Facebook's mobile app best suited for phones without a lot of processing oomph or memory.

Facebook browser interface includes a chat feature. If you want to use that from your phone, you'll need a separate — Facebook Messenger — which lets you chat by text and video for free. As with the main Facebook app, there's a scaled-down version of Facebook Messenger for low-powered Android phones.

Got a Windows device? Then better head to a web browser if you don't already have Facebook installed. As we noted, Facebook removed its app from the Windows store.

What you can do with Facebook

Facebook ushered in a new look last year to place more of an emphasis on groups, since that's one area of the social networking site that a lot of people are satisfied with. The company also says it's taking a more aggressive approach to privacy after a series of high-profile blunders suggested that Facebook has been pretty cavalier with your personal data. 

The mobile versions of Facebook have introduced dark modes, which are becoming increasingly popular ways of reducing battery consumption and eye strain. The iOS version of Dark Mode is rolling out more slowly, however.

June 5, 2015, Facebook made the official announcement of Facebook Lite. The announcement came through the company CEO, Mark Zuckerberg’s very own Facebook page.

Facebook Lite is a completely new app designed from the ground-up, to better integrate its services with older Android devices and budget models. It seeks to achieve complete functionality in countries and regions known to have slow(er) internet connectivity – developing nations.

The package itself weighs in at a tiny ~1MB and is much faster than the standard Facebook app.

The roll-out for Facebook Lite (sometimes referred to as simply “Lite”) has been strange. Despite the official announcement not being revealed until June 5, early packages of the app date back to the beginning of the year, January 2015. Rather than Facebook Developers making the app universally available to everyone at a global level, it has been rolled out in selected countries, yet still remains largely unavailable to others via the Google Play Store.

In today’s Tutorial, we show you how to install Facebook Lite on your Android device, completely free of any locale restrictions and limitations.

Prerequisite

Facebook Lite must be downloaded manually from a third-party source, due to its limited release in the Play Store. Performing a simple search in your favorite search engine with the following string “facebook lite android apk” will bring up one of the several respected APK mirror websites and will lead you to the latest package.

Android install-able packages are distributed as APK archives.

Once you have downloaded the latest APK package, you can now proceed to the installation process.

Installation

Before you proceed to install the package, you need to ensure that your Android device is set to allow for
manual installation of third-party and non-marketplace packages. This can be done by entering the
APPLICATIONS menu in your device SETTINGS.

Once you enter the APPLICATIONS settings, you will notice that the UNKNOWN SOURCES option is probably disabled by default. This must be enabled.

Once you have enabled the UNKNOWN SOURCES option, it will now have a tick next to it to indicate the option is now available.

The next step is to enter your device File Manager and navigate to your Downloads directory on the device. This varies on each device and is dependent on a user’s preferences.

Once you have entered the Downloads directory of where the APK packaged is saved, it is now time to install Facebook Lite onto your Android device.

To install the package, simply select the APK archive. Post-selection, you may be prompted with an install options screen which looks similar to the illustration below.

Select the PACKAGE INSTALLER option and the APK archive will proceed to install on your device.

The installation should complete in less than 60 seconds. This is primarily due to the packages tiny size.

Once Facebook Lite is installed, it will display as simply “Lite”.

You can now launch the Facebook Lite app from your Android device.

Conclusion

It’s easy to be fooled by the tiny size of the package. But do not be fooled. The power within Facebook Lite equals that of its much bigger brother app.

Facebook Lite contains Messenger capability without the requirement for the Facebook Messenger app to be installed separate to that of the main Facebook app.

For today’s Tutorial, we used an older Android device running on Android 2.2. We also run it on a brand new smartphone running the latest version of the Android operating system. It runs excellent on both devices. So although it is designed specifically for older devices with slow connectivity capability, there is nothing stopping anyone from using it on even the most recent Android smartphone.

It has the added benefit of integrated Messenger features and push notifications and will save lots of memory on your device. The mainstream Facebook app combined with the Messenger app can take up anything between ~400-500MB of space. It’s a huge chunk of space out of your device, when often lack-of space is something that older and budget model devices suffer most. Facebook Lite consumes approximately ~1MB of space, with added benefits of everything integrated into one small tiny package. It really is a hard app to look past and not give consideration to.

Reality is, we are a little shocked that most mainstream computer and technology websites have largely ignored just how good Facebook Lite is, as there has been so little coverage of its performance and benefits.

We highly recommend installing it in favor of the mainstream Facebook and Messenger apps, for the reason of space saving and increased performance thanks to the lightweight and no extra bloat.

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