How Facebook and Messenger Apps Drain Phone's Battery

It is a known fact that the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps for iOS and Android devices consume battery juice more than expected and even more than can be tolerated by users. Facebook Messenger app has been for long in the shadows of WhatsApp but has now taken the lead as the app installed and used by most users. Besides the numerous complaints from people worldwide, authorities and analysts have conducted tests and affirmed the fact that both the Facebook app and its Messenger are battery hogs even when they are not in use. AVG ranks these two apps among its top ten list of battery drainers and performance eaters on smartphones. 

If you are thinking about using a battery saver and performance booster app to solve this problem, it may not, and most probably, will not work. Greenify is one of those reliable and relatively efficient tools available that identify and hibernate or kill apps that are potential battery juice suckers. But Facebook and Messenger app keep on consuming even while being 'put to sleep' by Greenify. So what's wrong with these? And what can you do? 

The abnormal battery drain and performance penalty do not occur particularly while you are using the apps, like when sharing or making voice calls online, but when they are idle and supposed to be dormant. 

Facebook has officially acknowledged cognizance of this problem and has already partly fixed it, save that the 'solution' does not seem to be really working to satisfaction. In fact, Ari Grant of FB gives two reasons for the problem: a CPU spin and poor management of audio sessions. 

The CPU spin is a relatively complex mechanism to be understood by ordinary facebookers, so here is a simple way of comprehending it. The CPU is the microprocessor of your smartphone and it services (runs) threads which are tasks to be executed by running programs or apps. The CPU has to service several apps or threads in a way that appears to be simultaneous to the user (which actually is the underlying principle behind multitasking devices - those that can run multiple programs at the same time), but which in fact involves servicing one app or thread at a time for a tiny period of time taking turns with the threads.

It often happens that one thread has to wait for something to occur before being entitled to be serviced by the CPU, like a user input (such as a letter typed on the keyboard) or some data entering the system. The Facebook app's thread remains in this 'busy waiting' state for a long time (most probably waiting for an event related to push notification), as do many other apps, but it also keeps querying and polling for this event constantly, making it somewhat 'active' without actually doing anything useful. This is a CPU spin, which consumes battery power and other resources thereby affecting performance and battery life. 

The second problem occurs after playing multimedia on Facebook or engaging in communication involving audio, where poor management of the audio causes wastage. After closing the video or call, the audio mechanism remains 'open', causing the app to keep using the same amount of resources, which including CPU time and battery juice, in the background. However, it does not emit any audio output and you hear nothing, which is why no one notices anything.

Following this, Facebook announced updates to its apps with partial fixes to these problems. So, the first thing to try is to update your Facebook and Messengers apps. But to this date, performances and metrics, along with shared user experiences, indicate the problem is still present. 

I suspect there are problems of other kinds related to the app running the background. Like the audio, several other parameters may have been poorly managed. The operating system of your phone, be it iOS or Android, has services (background system software) running that act as facilitators to the apps you use. It could be that inefficient management of the Facebook app causes inefficiencies with those other apps as well. This way, performance and battery metrics will not show all of the abnormal consumption for Facebook only but will share it with those other apps as well. Put simply, the Facebook app, as the source of the problem, could propagate the inefficiency to other auxiliary system apps thereby causing overall inefficiency and abnormal battery consumption. 

As mentioned above, you can update your Facebook and Messenger apps hoping for the partial solution proposed by FB to work for you. 

A much better option performance-wise is to squarely uninstall both the Facebook and Messenger apps and use your browser to access your Facebook account. It will work just like on your computer. Sure it will not have the finesse that the app provided, which it was made for, but at least, you are sure to save at least a fifth of your battery life. You can furthermore consider using a leaner browser for this, one that uses the least resources possible, and remain signed in to it. Once example, among others, is Opera Mini. 

If you really need to do the thing app-wise, then you can consider alternatives such as Metal for Facebook and Twitter and Tinfoil for Facebook.