The new in-app browser will make sure you never leave Facebook

Facebook is continuously testing with new features, trying to make the experience better for their over 1 billion users. Last year, they revealed plans for their artificially intelligent personal assistant, they introduced video profile pictures, Facebook Reactions, Mentions and Video Autoplay to name a few. We have recently found out that the social media giant is experimenting with a new in-app browser that will make sure you never leave Facebook.

Currently, when you open up articles they appear something like this:

The new browser will be in-built and this is how it will reportedly look like:

@MattNavarra is this in-app browser new to the @facebook app? pic.twitter.com/aIhYSp2kC9

— Henry Wilmer (@HenryWilmer) January 16, 2016

The company has been testing with this new feature for a few months now. Here’s what we know about Facebook’s new in-app browser:

1. Apart from the UI changes, Facebook is hoping to imitate an actual browser . Their current browser loads pages and follows hyperlinks to other sites.
2. You will also be able enter your own URL, browse whichever sites you want without actually leaving the Facebook app.
3. A bar at the bottom will tell you how popular a post is, buttons to move back and forth between pages, a bookmark button (thankfully) and a menu button whose functionality we’re not sure about at this point.
4. The browser apparently does not support multiple tabs but that feature will probably be introduced in due time.
5. This new browser would be a close approximation of a full-fledged app.

This new venture quite a sensible move from the company for two reasons: (1) It’ll make Facebook an eco-system unto itself, making sure that the traffic they draw is contained for as long as possible. (2) It could also pave the way for a future dedicated Facebook browser.

The browser isn’t available to the public yet and is only being tested on small subsets of users, that too for iOS only.

Image Source – The Next Web