The downside is that of course you have to have a Facebook account. The benefit of using Facebook Messenger is that you don’t need to be tied to a single phone number, like with WhatsApp. It proved to be wildly successful, currently amassing over a billion monthly users. In 2011, Facebook created a standalone Messenger application with text chat as well as voice and video calls capabilities. Facebook Messenger is great at multitasking as well, as you can join chats while doing other things on your computer, making it easy to stay prepared while in a video conference.Even though Facebook is getting criticized more and more frequently nowadays, it’s still the most dominant social media platform, with nearly three billion monthly active users.

Having the Facebook contacts are both easier than Zoom, and safer since the only people that can join your call are your friends, eliminating any concern of strangers intruding. Once people start joining the call, you'll see them popping up on your screen and if you want to add more people while on a call, simply click the Add button (the plus icon) and choose from your contacts. After choosing the contacts or the Facebook group you want to include in the group chat, you click the 'video chat' button to the right of the phone icon at the top right of the screen. With that said, if you're familiar with the mobile app, the desktop version will come as a breeze, and if not, here's some instructions.Īfter downloading the app, and connecting it to your Facebook account, you can start a group video call by clicking on the 'new message' button on the left, directly next to 'Messenger.' It's the paper to pencil icon. In many ways, the Facebook Messenger app for desktop is just a bigger version of the mobile app-with features like chat sync you can use both your mobile phone and your desktop to video chat.

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