Facebook Messenger Editor's Review

Chat with all of your Facebook friends with this handy Windows app.

Keeping in touch with your friends isn't always easy. Some use this tool. Others frequent that site. Getting to everyone on a common platform isn't always possible; however, Facebook is one place where most everyone goes. This is one of the reasons why I really like Facebook Messenger. It’s a chat tool for Windows.

Facebook is great for catching up with old friends. Its chat features are pretty nice and very useful. You can chat with just about anyone, anytime, anywhere.  The big problem with Facebook chat is that it requires you to have a browser open, and be logged into their site for it to work. Facebook Messenger solves this problem.

You can do almost everything with Facebook Messenger that you can with FB chat on their website.  The app makes use of Java to provide universality from platform to platform, and this is both good and bad. Java may be the great programmatic equalizer – code once, execute on many platforms – but it can be problematic as well.  Each platform performs differently and Java may not behave the same way from platform to platform. I had some problems getting the app to behave and function as I had hoped it would. It offered similar experiences on all the Windows machines I tried to run it on.

App Pro’s: Free, multi-platform support

App Con’s: Chat recipients must have a Facebook account, Java based, App can perform differently on different computers

Conclusion: The app's interface can be somewhat confusing. It's not always clear where incoming messages and their alerts will appear. Sometimes they show up in your active chat window, other times in your inbox. It makes for a confusing conversation. It also doesn't do a lot for the app's usability, either. Facebook Messenger is an ok app, but nothing really to get excited about.