For many years I’ve done the majority of my online communication via instant messengers such as Yahoo, AIM, and more recently, Skype. However, it seems that a lot of people are instead opting to use Facebook’s own chat functionality. Personally, I’ve never used a more buggy messenger, but the convenience of having it built into a social network is what appeals to most users. Well, if you want to take your Facebook chat with you no matter where you go, you can now do that on your phone.

Facebook has released an official standalone Messenger app for your Android or iOS device. When I say standalone, I mean that it is used solely for chatting with other Facebook users. As long as you’re signed in, you’ll receive all messages instantly, regardless of whether they were sent from the website or the mobile app. I suppose if you really want to communicate with your friends via Facebook, this might be a good way to do it.