Discover app will work on low bandwidth
With an aim to take forward the vision of Facebook's Free Basics initiative, Facebook has introduced the new Discover app to provide users in developing countries so that users can access free data to browse the internet. For those who don't know, the Free Basics initiative is present in 55 countries and collaborates with mobile operators to provide people with basic internet usage for free. Read on to know more about the Discover app.
Facebook Discover app for free internet
The Discover is a web and Android app that allows users to go through the internet and access any website by using the free data provided by their mobile operators. For the app, Facebook has collaborated with various telecom operators to provide users with daily free data. The data per day varies with different mobile operators. The app is currently available in Peru and will eventually reach other countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Iraq.
Facebook, in a blog post, states, "With Discover, we’re exploring ways to help people stay on the internet more consistently. Many internet users around the world remain under-connected, regularly dropping off the internet for some period of time when they exhaust their data balance. Discover is designed to help bridge these gaps and keep people connected until they can purchase data again. We’ll also be assessing how Discover can help people extend the use of their regular data balance and support internet adoption."
The Discover app uses low-bandwidth browsing to load only the text on the website for users to get the information on any website. With this, videos, audio, and other data-hogging elements of the website won't load. Users will be provided daily free data and will be notified for the same too. Technically speaking, the app routes the web traffic via the Discover proxy, which is temporarily decrypted to remove media from the websites. The data between the app the HTTPS websites are encrypted and the users' browsing history isn't saved.
Additionally, for users to use the Discover app, a Facebook account isn't necessary and the mobile operators aren't paid by Facebook for the free data they provide.
Facebook's Discover app appears like an option one might need, especially amid the current Coronavirus crisis to get all the information. However, Facebook's Free Basics (successor to the Internet.org initiative) wasn't well-received in various countries and taken down for going against net neutrality. Hence, it remains to be seen how the Discover app is taken by the users.
