Facebook Desktop

In the times when the Internet is reaching its full potential, social networks help a lot in this regard, and not just for entertainment, but even business. Now what better way to stay in touch with your buddies or associates directly from the desktop? Well Facebook Desktop, as the name suggests, aims to do just that.

One thing you need to do before grabbing the application is make sure the computer you run it on is equipped with Adobe AIR, since it’s built on this platform, requiring it both to be installed and to run. Other than that, just make sure to think of some good stuff to post.

Registration or the login screen is the first menu you encounter, making a rather poor first impression. This is because the window fits the web page in a rather odd and difficult position, and resizing needs to be done, with some glitchy animations. More than that, the maximize button on the title bar is grayed out, which renders it obsolete.

Choosing to save your password is recommended in case you don’t want to encounter the login window ever again. When finally logged in, the whole application minimizes to the system tray, with a transparent pop-up notification letting you know it’s there.

On mouse click, a small window appears with an editable text field so you can post your thoughts in a second. Sadly, there’s no shortcut hotkey in case something immediately pops in mind. However, you can access the settings menu for a few options you wish to manage regarding notifications.

The bad part is you still depend on your web browser for the whole experience, and since this is not the official desktop application from Facebook, this was to be expected. Any other action than updating your status still needs to be done from a browser. There’s a function to quickly display the last five notifications, but there never seems to be anything on.

During our stay in our test PC, Facebook Desktop showed us more or less the importance of a web browser, rather than a desktop enhancement, which kind of defeats the purpose. It’s only functional feature comes in handy if people keep bombarding you with notifications, and you actually give a potato.