- Oct 22, 2020
- 10,071
- 52,835
- 449
- ♂️
- Thread Author
- #1
FACEBOOK LITE
We realize you’re likely on this list to get away from this app. However, sometimes it’s unavoidable. Whenever Facebook rolls out a new feature, the official app will have it long before the third party Facebook apps. Facebook’s official suite of apps include Facebook Messenger, Facebook Groups, Facebook at Work, and Facebook Mentions (if you’re famous). They aren’t great for battery life, but they’ll always get the new features first. Facebook Messenger is also notoriously hard to use outside of the official app. Consequently, Facebook also makes Facebook Lite. It’s a super light, simple, and surprisingly good alternative to its larger, battery swilling sibling. If you want something lighter than regular Facebook, we recommend trying the Facebook Lite app.
FRIENDLY SOCIAL BROWSER
Friendly Social Browser is one of the newer Facebook apps. It has a pretty decent set of features as well. That includes theming, Facebook Messenger support, the ability to customize your news feed, and more. You can also download videos from Facebook. The News Feed customization allows you to filter out things like keywords. That’s a great way to get rid of nonsense you don’t want to see. This is definitely among the best third party Facebook apps.
MAKI
Maki is a serviceable and functional replacement for Facebook. It offers both Facebook and Facebook Messenger along with a small app size, no ads even in the free version, and a fingerprint unlock for privacy. You also get themes, multi-account support, the ability to download photos from Instagram, and more. The app is a few glitches here and there, but nothing that detracts from the overall experience in our testing.
PHOENIX
Phoenix is another Facebook alternative with Facebook Messenger support. You can do almost all of the same stuff as the official app and the Messenger section works with things like voice calls and chat heads. You also get a few extra functions not available in the Facebook app. We experienced the occasional crash or hiccup from time to time during our testing, but it’s also entirely free with no ads so you get what you pay for.
SIMPLE SOCIAL
Simple for Facebook keeps true to its namesake. It’s a simple web-wrapper for the Facebook mobile site. It includes all of the basic features. That includes interacting with posts, uploading photo and video, and all of that. It also boasts support for Facebook Messenger. About the only other noteworthy thing about the app is the small selection of themes. Like we said, this one is really simple.
SLIMSOCIAL
SlimSocial is a newer Facebook app that keeps it wicked simple. Its claim to fame is its intensely small size (100KB), that it shows no ads, and that it’s open source so you can go view the source c0d3 and contribute to its development if you want to. Aside from that, there isn’t much to talk about. It’ll be a little slow and clunky like many third party apps. It’s not that bad, though. The developer has also expressed interest in adding new features down the road like background notifications along with more stuff.
SWIPE FOR FACEBOOK
Swipe for Facebook is one of the more powerful Facebook apps. It has a laundry list of features, including an ad blocker, Facebook Messenger support, themes, chat heads, Material Design, and support for over 30 languages. It’s less resource intensive than the stock Facebook app. However, it is a little larger than something like SlimSocial. The app even includes multiple layouts that mock the stock Facebook app, Google+, and other setups.
TINFOIL
Tinfoil is a little bit older, but many people still swear by it. Tinfoil’s claim to fame is being a Facebook app that doesn’t ask for any of your permissions, hence the name. It’s a web-wrapper like many of these. Thus, most of its features are similar to the web version. This is is an excellent choice for people who still want to use Facebook but don’t want it installed on their phone at all in any capacity. It hasn’t received an update in quite some time so we may not include it in the next update of this list, but for now, it’s a free, ad-free, and permission-free solution. The only downside is the lack of updates as the app hasn’t seen one since 2017 (as of the time of this writing). We hope that changes.
FROST FOR FACEBOOK
Frost for Facebook is a Facebook client that's as powerful as it is elegant, thanks to which you can manage various Facebook accounts from the same interface. The interface is totally customizable, too, and you can apply four different themes. From the drop-down menu on the left side of the app, you can quickly access your photos, groups, or even chats. So Frost lets you talk with your Facebook friends without needing to have Messenger installed. It's two apps in one.
We realize you’re likely on this list to get away from this app. However, sometimes it’s unavoidable. Whenever Facebook rolls out a new feature, the official app will have it long before the third party Facebook apps. Facebook’s official suite of apps include Facebook Messenger, Facebook Groups, Facebook at Work, and Facebook Mentions (if you’re famous). They aren’t great for battery life, but they’ll always get the new features first. Facebook Messenger is also notoriously hard to use outside of the official app. Consequently, Facebook also makes Facebook Lite. It’s a super light, simple, and surprisingly good alternative to its larger, battery swilling sibling. If you want something lighter than regular Facebook, we recommend trying the Facebook Lite app.
FRIENDLY SOCIAL BROWSER
Friendly Social Browser is one of the newer Facebook apps. It has a pretty decent set of features as well. That includes theming, Facebook Messenger support, the ability to customize your news feed, and more. You can also download videos from Facebook. The News Feed customization allows you to filter out things like keywords. That’s a great way to get rid of nonsense you don’t want to see. This is definitely among the best third party Facebook apps.
MAKI
Maki is a serviceable and functional replacement for Facebook. It offers both Facebook and Facebook Messenger along with a small app size, no ads even in the free version, and a fingerprint unlock for privacy. You also get themes, multi-account support, the ability to download photos from Instagram, and more. The app is a few glitches here and there, but nothing that detracts from the overall experience in our testing.
PHOENIX
Phoenix is another Facebook alternative with Facebook Messenger support. You can do almost all of the same stuff as the official app and the Messenger section works with things like voice calls and chat heads. You also get a few extra functions not available in the Facebook app. We experienced the occasional crash or hiccup from time to time during our testing, but it’s also entirely free with no ads so you get what you pay for.
SIMPLE SOCIAL
Simple for Facebook keeps true to its namesake. It’s a simple web-wrapper for the Facebook mobile site. It includes all of the basic features. That includes interacting with posts, uploading photo and video, and all of that. It also boasts support for Facebook Messenger. About the only other noteworthy thing about the app is the small selection of themes. Like we said, this one is really simple.
SLIMSOCIAL
SlimSocial is a newer Facebook app that keeps it wicked simple. Its claim to fame is its intensely small size (100KB), that it shows no ads, and that it’s open source so you can go view the source c0d3 and contribute to its development if you want to. Aside from that, there isn’t much to talk about. It’ll be a little slow and clunky like many third party apps. It’s not that bad, though. The developer has also expressed interest in adding new features down the road like background notifications along with more stuff.
SWIPE FOR FACEBOOK
Swipe for Facebook is one of the more powerful Facebook apps. It has a laundry list of features, including an ad blocker, Facebook Messenger support, themes, chat heads, Material Design, and support for over 30 languages. It’s less resource intensive than the stock Facebook app. However, it is a little larger than something like SlimSocial. The app even includes multiple layouts that mock the stock Facebook app, Google+, and other setups.
TINFOIL
Tinfoil is a little bit older, but many people still swear by it. Tinfoil’s claim to fame is being a Facebook app that doesn’t ask for any of your permissions, hence the name. It’s a web-wrapper like many of these. Thus, most of its features are similar to the web version. This is is an excellent choice for people who still want to use Facebook but don’t want it installed on their phone at all in any capacity. It hasn’t received an update in quite some time so we may not include it in the next update of this list, but for now, it’s a free, ad-free, and permission-free solution. The only downside is the lack of updates as the app hasn’t seen one since 2017 (as of the time of this writing). We hope that changes.
FROST FOR FACEBOOK
Frost for Facebook is a Facebook client that's as powerful as it is elegant, thanks to which you can manage various Facebook accounts from the same interface. The interface is totally customizable, too, and you can apply four different themes. From the drop-down menu on the left side of the app, you can quickly access your photos, groups, or even chats. So Frost lets you talk with your Facebook friends without needing to have Messenger installed. It's two apps in one.
Last edited:
