4 ms·

Basic Facebook

84 points by SoulMan 11y ago

cognitivesys 11y ago
I can't access from indonesia
- Alex3917 11y ago
  The WiFi routers in most of the hotels/airports block certain sites (e.g. Reddit). Facebook itself isn't blocked at the national level, unless this is somehow different.
edgarvaldes 11y ago
Same as m.facebook.com?
- orbitur 11y ago
  No. Visually they're very different. I can't open the dev console right now, but it appears there's far less JS and "responsive design" on basic mode. m.facebook.com is more dynamic. It's like the Facebook of 2005.
  - chippy 11y ago
    Hmm, Visually in my ff browser they appear identical. And looking at the requested JS, they also appear the same. Odd..
    - edgarvaldes 11y ago
      Same here, FF on Linux Mint.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
jbish 11y ago
Seems like many of the features of the full Facebook are there. I wonder if they are leveraging their React components to render the same stuff on the server...
- Bahamut 11y ago
  I'm not quite sure this is necessarily the case - I noticed that on the regular FB site, it has one notification for two friends having a birthday, and yet in this basic version, it claims I have two notifications for the same notification.
neals 11y ago
Wow, that's fast
agumonkey 11y ago
Seeing blocky buttons made me feel happy for a reason.
kenrick95 11y ago
How is this different from https://m.facebook.com/ https://m.facebook.com/ ? (I access them from desktop [edit: Firefox on Windows 8.1] and they look the same)
- orbitur 11y ago
  Weird, the standard mobile site and this basic one are very different for me in Chrome. This one seems to have much less JS. It looks like the old school static Facebook page.
- lawlessone 11y ago
  They both look different on my phone.
- kenrick95 11y ago
  Hmmm, should be some user-agent detection. But on my phone (Windows Phone), https://m.facebook.com https://m.facebook.com looks like https://x.facebook.com https://x.facebook.com and https://touch.facebook.com https://touch.facebook.com from desktop while https://mbasic.facebook.com https://mbasic.facebook.com looks like the very basic mobile site. Previously I own and used a Nokia E-72 (around 2010-2014), and from its default browser it serves this basic kind of Facebook for its m.facebook.com
Thaxll 11y ago
Is it the thing for low bandwidth like Africa ect..?
tangue 11y ago
I was stuck with notifications I can't delete on one of my fanpages and couldn't find any solutions to fix this bug (anyone who has ever tried to find support on FB can easily understand that we're the things in "break things" ) Until I use Facebook with this old UI. It solves this bug right away (Indeed it doesn't solve anything, it works as expected.) So if you have a problem with Facebook maybe you should try this UI.
sebular 11y ago
It's pretty cool how minimal this is. No JS, not even an external CSS file. And it's snappy too. I almost prefer it to the regular Facebook.
mrcactu5 11y ago
Is this from Facebook or someone's (very good) hack?
- freehunter 11y ago
  Well since it's at facebook.com, it would be a very good hack if it was not official.
em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
Ive been using the basic site ever since I saw since I saw a talk by RMS about the "javascript trap" of unintentially running non-free code in your browser on an otherwise free machine. I have since grown accustomed to it and instead of finding it to be fast, I rather just find the regular site to be horribly slow.
- wcummings 11y ago
  This will work w/o javascript?
  - em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
    Yes. You can use the noscript addon in firefox to be sure. On Android, I use the tinfoil for Facebook app ( Via F-Droid) which additionally blocks a variety of privacy intrusions.
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  >I saw a talk by RMS Genuinely curious: why are you using Facebook in the first place?
  - em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
    I am a musician and to some extent need to use Facebook at some minimal level as it is generally expected in my town. RMS made the argument that if you must use kindred services like youtube and Facebook, that you should at the minimum use the javascript free versions.
coob 11y ago
Reminds me of this from 2009: http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/facebook-begins-testing-facebook-lite-a-faster-simpler-version-of-the-service/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/facebook-begins-testing-fac...
freehunter 11y ago
Wish there was a view that would get rid of the "People you may know" sitting above content I care about.
- TheCapn 11y ago
  I've been playing with Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey plugins and using them to tear out content I dislike in facebook. I currently replace Trending/Suggested For you sidebar with random pictures from /r/aww. I'm sure you could do similar things if you cared to.
davidu 11y ago
It requires a special kind of engineer and PM to dedicate the time and skill required to make things like this work when most of the rest of the company is working to take advantage of the bleeding edge of technology. Hats off to that person or team!
- iaw 11y ago
  This is their mid-quality mobile web version (predominantly for smartphone users with non-native apps), they actively maintain it alongside all of their other platforms (including two other quality mobile web versions for less and greater bandwidth). I think the mentality is about accessibility, not technology, it's just that a lot of what gets focused on coming out of the company is from the high-tech side.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    They also have a "lite" app that can only be installed if you access the Android Play store from an Asian IP or similar. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.lite https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.l... I wonder why they bother segregating it like that though. I would love to give it a spin, as i have found their main app to be hogging the CPU one too many times lately.
    - glomph 11y ago
      You can download the apk and it will work on any phone. So you can either trust somewhere like http://www.apkmirror.com/ http://www.apkmirror.com/ or use one of the various methods of ripping the apk from the play store. I use lite for notifications because my phone has limited space and I find the website to be good enough.
      - digi_owl 11y ago
        About those notifications, apparently Opera Mini support them now. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.opera.mini.native https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.opera.mini... Not sure i am a fan of their new interface though, and it is a proxy browser (pages get pre-processed on a Opera run server).
pervycreeper 11y ago
There is a trend in video games to rewrite games for old platforms, to get modern functionality using extremely constrained resources (e.g. http://csdb.dk/release/?id=94672 http://csdb.dk/release/?id=94672 http://csdb.dk/release/?id=114055 http://csdb.dk/release/?id=114055 http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2012/10/super-bread-box-preview-c64.html http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2012/10/super-bread-box-preview-c64.ht... ). Here's hoping that web hipsters will start a similar trend.
snx 11y ago
Isn't this the view for older WAP phones?
burntcookie90 11y ago
If you use the tinfoil app on android, it has an option for this mode as well.

Basic Facebook

84 points by SoulMan 11y ago

cognitivesys 11y ago

I can't access from indonesia

Alex3917 11y ago
The WiFi routers in most of the hotels/airports block certain sites (e.g. Reddit). Facebook itself isn't blocked at the national level, unless this is somehow different.

edgarvaldes 11y ago

Same as m.facebook.com?

orbitur 11y ago
No. Visually they're very different. I can't open the dev console right now, but it appears there's far less JS and "responsive design" on basic mode. m.facebook.com is more dynamic. It's like the Facebook of 2005.
- chippy 11y ago
  Hmm, Visually in my ff browser they appear identical. And looking at the requested JS, they also appear the same. Odd..
  - edgarvaldes 11y ago
    Same here, FF on Linux Mint.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

jbish 11y ago

Seems like many of the features of the full Facebook are there. I wonder if they are leveraging their React components to render the same stuff on the server...

Bahamut 11y ago
I'm not quite sure this is necessarily the case - I noticed that on the regular FB site, it has one notification for two friends having a birthday, and yet in this basic version, it claims I have two notifications for the same notification.

neals 11y ago

Wow, that's fast

agumonkey 11y ago

Seeing blocky buttons made me feel happy for a reason.

kenrick95 11y ago

How is this different from https://m.facebook.com/ https://m.facebook.com/ ? (I access them from desktop [edit: Firefox on Windows 8.1] and they look the same)

orbitur 11y ago
Weird, the standard mobile site and this basic one are very different for me in Chrome. This one seems to have much less JS. It looks like the old school static Facebook page.
lawlessone 11y ago
They both look different on my phone.
kenrick95 11y ago
Hmmm, should be some user-agent detection. But on my phone (Windows Phone), https://m.facebook.com https://m.facebook.com looks like https://x.facebook.com https://x.facebook.com and https://touch.facebook.com https://touch.facebook.com from desktop while https://mbasic.facebook.com https://mbasic.facebook.com looks like the very basic mobile site. Previously I own and used a Nokia E-72 (around 2010-2014), and from its default browser it serves this basic kind of Facebook for its m.facebook.com

Thaxll 11y ago

Is it the thing for low bandwidth like Africa ect..?

tangue 11y ago

I was stuck with notifications I can't delete on one of my fanpages and couldn't find any solutions to fix this bug (anyone who has ever tried to find support on FB can easily understand that we're the things in "break things" ) Until I use Facebook with this old UI. It solves this bug right away (Indeed it doesn't solve anything, it works as expected.) So if you have a problem with Facebook maybe you should try this UI.

sebular 11y ago

It's pretty cool how minimal this is. No JS, not even an external CSS file. And it's snappy too. I almost prefer it to the regular Facebook.

mrcactu5 11y ago

Is this from Facebook or someone's (very good) hack?

freehunter 11y ago
Well since it's at facebook.com, it would be a very good hack if it was not official.

em3rgent0rdr 11y ago

Ive been using the basic site ever since I saw since I saw a talk by RMS about the "javascript trap" of unintentially running non-free code in your browser on an otherwise free machine. I have since grown accustomed to it and instead of finding it to be fast, I rather just find the regular site to be horribly slow.

wcummings 11y ago
This will work w/o javascript?
- em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
  Yes. You can use the noscript addon in firefox to be sure. On Android, I use the tinfoil for Facebook app ( Via F-Droid) which additionally blocks a variety of privacy intrusions.
pervycreeper 11y ago
>I saw a talk by RMS Genuinely curious: why are you using Facebook in the first place?
- em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
  I am a musician and to some extent need to use Facebook at some minimal level as it is generally expected in my town. RMS made the argument that if you must use kindred services like youtube and Facebook, that you should at the minimum use the javascript free versions.

coob 11y ago

Reminds me of this from 2009: http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/facebook-begins-testing-facebook-lite-a-faster-simpler-version-of-the-service/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/facebook-begins-testing-fac...

freehunter 11y ago

Wish there was a view that would get rid of the "People you may know" sitting above content I care about.

TheCapn 11y ago
I've been playing with Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey plugins and using them to tear out content I dislike in facebook. I currently replace Trending/Suggested For you sidebar with random pictures from /r/aww. I'm sure you could do similar things if you cared to.

davidu 11y ago

It requires a special kind of engineer and PM to dedicate the time and skill required to make things like this work when most of the rest of the company is working to take advantage of the bleeding edge of technology. Hats off to that person or team!

iaw 11y ago
This is their mid-quality mobile web version (predominantly for smartphone users with non-native apps), they actively maintain it alongside all of their other platforms (including two other quality mobile web versions for less and greater bandwidth). I think the mentality is about accessibility, not technology, it's just that a lot of what gets focused on coming out of the company is from the high-tech side.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  They also have a "lite" app that can only be installed if you access the Android Play store from an Asian IP or similar. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.lite https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.l... I wonder why they bother segregating it like that though. I would love to give it a spin, as i have found their main app to be hogging the CPU one too many times lately.
  - glomph 11y ago
    You can download the apk and it will work on any phone. So you can either trust somewhere like http://www.apkmirror.com/ http://www.apkmirror.com/ or use one of the various methods of ripping the apk from the play store. I use lite for notifications because my phone has limited space and I find the website to be good enough.
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      About those notifications, apparently Opera Mini support them now. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.opera.mini.native https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.opera.mini... Not sure i am a fan of their new interface though, and it is a proxy browser (pages get pre-processed on a Opera run server).

pervycreeper 11y ago

There is a trend in video games to rewrite games for old platforms, to get modern functionality using extremely constrained resources (e.g. http://csdb.dk/release/?id=94672 http://csdb.dk/release/?id=94672 http://csdb.dk/release/?id=114055 http://csdb.dk/release/?id=114055 http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2012/10/super-bread-box-preview-c64.html http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2012/10/super-bread-box-preview-c64.ht... ). Here's hoping that web hipsters will start a similar trend.

snx 11y ago

Isn't this the view for older WAP phones?

burntcookie90 11y ago

If you use the tinfoil app on android, it has an option for this mode as well.