The option to open links in the Facebook app in the browser of your choice is a cool feature. For starters, it’s clear that Facebook isn’t particularly committed to tweaking the in-app browser anytime soon. Also, the less data we send directly to Facebook, the better, right?
Recently, there has been a strange activity related to the possibility of opening external links on Facebook. The feature appeared to have been silently removed in June 2021 after which it was silently re-installed.
So who knows if this option persists. But in the meantime, here’s how to get the Facebook app to use the browser of your choice to display links.
In this article, Niketrainers.com.co will tell you:
What is an in-app browser?
In-app browsers are nothing but web browsers without all the other features that browsers like Opera, Chrome, and Firefox contain. Application developers such as Facebook create these browsers to run only within their application. They cannot be opened on their own, only through your application.
Companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail all use these browsers, so you can still use their app instead of another one. They don’t want you to quit their application.
Negative aspects of the browser integrated with the Facebook application
This is what the Facebook application viewer looks like. As you can see, it has a lot of features compared to Chrome and Firefox.
Besides, there are many reasons why you might not want to use the Application Browser:
- You can only view one website at a time. You cannot open new tabs.
- You cannot enter new URLs. There is no address bar in these browsers.
- The app’s browser doesn’t store your login details, so you’ll have to re-enter everything if you go to a site that requires your password.
- Options such as “find on page” and “open desktop site” are not available.
- Sometimes pages don’t load properly or may crash soon after opening.
- There is no browsing history available, so you cannot go back and complete the story later without searching for it on Facebook.
- You cannot bookmark the site. Facebook has a way to “save” the website URL, but this is different from the bookmark action.
Change Facebook’s default browser
If you want to force Facebook to open links in your default browser, here are some steps to make it happen.
In the Facebook app, tap the three-line menu icon in the upper right corner, then scroll down to Settings & Privacy -> Settings.
Scroll down to Media.
At the bottom you should see “Externally Open Links”. Check this box to enable it.
Now, the next time you try to open a website link via Facebook, you will see the following screen asking which browser you want to use to open the links. You can click “Always” to open links in this browser from now on.
Now that you’ve set Facebook to use the default browser of your choice and not yours, you’ll never have to worry about losing access to the link when you close the app again. You can use the history in your browser and continue reading.
Want to do more with Facebook? Here’s how to delete Facebook messages in bulk. We can also show you how to download Facebook chat history.