Facebook snoops and sucks faster than ever

Speed

The number one Facebook complaint in the Google Play Store comments: it's sloooooooow!

But not anymore, because Facebook ditched HTML5 and went native. That's techspeak for: the app is a lot faster now. And it is faster indeed. Since Facebook for Android got rid of HTML5 its speed increased a lot.

Nope, I'm not the first to write about the speed increase. But most sites out there just copy what Facebook said about its update and only write about the speed increase. They ignore what Facebook does to your battery, your data, and your money, probably because they didn't bother to test the app before writing about it.

If you look beyond the Play Store description and Facebooks own press release you'll find that Facebook may have ditched HTML5, but it didn't ditch its bad habits.

Data and battery juice

When you get out of Facebook by hitting the back or home button you'd expect the app to keep quiet, unless you told it to sync by itself.

But Facebook doesn't keep quiet. When you switch all notifications and sync options off, it still goes online behind your back. The damage adds up to megabytes per day, which can be very expensive on international data roaming connections. Worse yet, Facebook won't allow your phone to enter deep sleep, so Facebook sucks your battery dry even when you're not using it.

You don't even have to launch the Facebook app for it, because it has so many autostart triggers that only a very good autostart manager can tame it.

What data goes from your phone to Facebook and back when you're not using Facebook? Your guess is as good as mine, because Facebook won't tell us what's going on in the background.

You could switch off all data roaming on your phone to keep Facebook from making your phone bill explode, but this also keeps apps like WhatsApp (cheap, hardly any data usage) offline. If you want to keep Facebook under control without killing other apps you have to freeze Facebook with apps like Titanium, use a firewall when roaming, silence it with a task killer after use (apps like Facebook are one of the reasons why Android task killers sometimes make sense), or simply get rid of it. If you want to use Facebook without the data-guzzling battery-draining official app you could simply use the mobile website, but then you'll have to scroll past the "go install our mobile app" ad everytime. Friendcaster is a good alternative. The way Friendcaster lets you swipe through its tabs beats what Facebooks own app has to offer.

• Facebook (if you have unlimited data and don't care about battery life)
• Friendcaster

Bad news: alternative last.fm apps CoboltFM and KLastFM are dead

Update 1: CoboltFM and KLastFM are really dead now. Last.fm changed things for the worse and pulled the plug on free streaming for almost everyone. Believe it or not, most of the planet can't stream anymore even if they pay. Last.fm refugees can still stream custom radio stations from Grooveshark with Dood's Music Streamer.

Update 2: Liquid Bear still plays last.fm radio on Android.

There's a problem with last.fm. Not with last.fm itself, but with the music industry that imposes stupid rules as if the days of sheet music and 78 RPM never ended. Last.fm is supposed to be a global music community, but if you want to listen to last.fm radio stations on your phone or tablet you'll find that last.fm is not so global anymore. Not because last.fm wants it, but because "recording industry" is an alien word that means greed in english.

A song that plays in Elzas (Germany) won't play 5 miles down the road in Alsace (France). What plays in Seattle doesn't play in Vancouver. It works in San Diego but not in Tijuana.

If you're in Germany, the UK, or the USA, last.fm plays on your mobile device. But if last.fm detects that your IP address is from one of the other 200 countries on the planet it only plays the sound of silence (and I don't mean that old song that your grandma listened to in Central Park). It won't even play if you have a paid last.fm subscription. For most of the planet, listening to last.fm on any mobile device is verboten.

The www is meant to be world wide. That's why there are Android apps out there that repair last.fm so you can listen on your mobile phone or tablet, no matter where in the world you are.

But then I received this email from last.fm:

Changes to Last.fm Radio

Hello, android underground.

We're writing you to let you know that there will soon be a change to Last.fm radio that may affect you. Our stats show that you've listened to radio through an application that uses our old streaming protocol. On 1 December we will deprecate this old protocol, so in some applications radio will no longer work.

If you would like to continue enjoying Last.fm Radio, consider upgrading to a new application or using http://www.last.fm/listen

Thanks,
The Last.fm Team

Would CoboltFM and KLastFM stop working?

It's the third of December now for half of the planet. In Asia, Australia, Africa, and most of Europe it's already the fourth. Both apps still play last.fm radio as if nothing happened. Maybe the old streaming protocol still works, maybe CoboltFM and KLastFM use the new protocol, maybe there's another reason why last.fm keeps singing on my Android phone.

Stay tuned.

Update 1: CoboltFM and KLastFM are really dead now. Last.fm changed things for the worse and pulled the plug on free streaming for almost everyone. Believe it or not, most of the planet can't stream anymore even if they pay. Last.fm refugees can still stream custom radio stations from Grooveshark with Dood's Music Streamer.

Update 2: Liquid Bear still plays last.fm radio on Android.

• Play last.fm radio with CoboltFM and KLastFM, play Grooveshark with Dood's Music Streamer and TinyShark

• Dood's Music Streamer has a Grooveshark radio function which is somewhat like last.fm radio
• Liquid Bear

Addons Detector catches apps that spam your homescreen

As if ad banners, click walls, and notification spam are not enough, some apps fill your homescreen and browser bookmarks with links to their advertisers. And many apps do so without telling you in advance or asking for permission first.

If you install a couple of apps and find a bunch of icons leading to junk, it can be hard to find out which app polluted your homescreen and your bookmarks. Google should require full disclosure of all advertising and tracking in apps before you install them, and kick developers who fail to ask for your permission out of its Google Play Store. Unfortunately Google doesn't seem to care, so we need to find out what's lurking inside our apps by having a look ourselves.

That's why Addons Detector keeps its eyes open. It scans all your apps and tells you which banner farms they sleep with, which stats collectors they send your data to without asking first, and which permissions apps grab even though you don't want to give 'em everything they ask for.

And now Addons Detector tells you which apps are guilty of dumping spam links on your homescreens.

Addons Detector only detects malware, adware, spamware, and other junkware. It doesn't remove it. To get rid of anything you don't want you can either uninstall the offending apps, or tame them with firewalls, ad blockers, and permissions managers.

• Addons Detector (Google Play Store)

Fight spam and scary permissions (rooted phone required):

• AdAway (blocks ads in apps and websites)
• LBE Privacy Guard (lets you control which permissions your apps get)
• AFWall+ (firewall)

Google Calendar needs tasks and more integration with the rest of Android

You can make Android apps talk with each other through the share menu, but that's not always enough. The calendar app that ships with Android is a prime example of something that needs more integration with the rest of the stock apps.

There are plenty of task managers out there in the Google Play Store to remind you to buy milk and beer, clean the bathroom, buy a bag of weed for your grandma who was young in the sixties, and to finish the paper that you should have published six months ago.

Many of those task apps and to-do services tap into Google Tasks.

Google Tasks gets really intimate with Google Calendar in your web browser, so why do they behave like strangers on Android?

Back when I used an old Nokia with Symbian, the calendar app included tasks, birthdays, and just about everything else to which you could stick a date. Google should have a good look at this old calendar app, and learn from it.

There are more opportunities for integration. My contacts list stores birthdays, weddings, and other anniversaries. So why does the stock calendar app doesn't know anything about the dates stored in my stock contacts app?

Some phones are tightly integrated with Facebook. Wouldn't it be nice if you could import the birthdays of your Facebook contacts into your Google calendar with a single tap on a button? Or does Google deliberately leave this feature out to switch to Google+?

Speaking of Google+, now here's an example of something that should not get mixed in with everything. I don't want to sign up with Google+ just so I can tell you what I think about your app in the Google Play Store.

As with all things Android, integration is good, but it should always be optional and never required.