how to somewhat easily switch to Facebook on the mobile web to answer Messages (for Android)

UPDATE: with recent updates to the Facebook app for Android these steps are no longer valid 🙁

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With all the hoopla surrounding Facebook’s Messenger app’s TOS, everyone is lost in the ‘fuq facebook!’ uproar but no one is actually providing a solution to the obvious question: HOW DO I RESPOND TO MY MESSAGES?

It’s a few extra clicks, but who cares, and it goes like this (for Android users).

So you click the Messages icon in the regular Facebook app and it no longer shows you your actual messages, and instead wants you to ‘Get App’ (big, colored button – I so want to click you! But I won’t.) or ‘Learn More’ – click to Learn More:

This will launch your Android’s default browser to the URL http://m.facebook.com/help/756608174361299. Once there click the ‘back’ button on the page:

This will take you to the top of the Help Center; now click the three-row tray in the top left and you’ll see your Messages tab:

Clicking the Messages tab, Facebook will want you to install their Stickers app. They have a Stickers app? Click the ‘Cancel’ button:

There are your Messages! When done responding to your friends on the open mobile web, click the tab counter and close the tab:

I’d write something witty railing against the tyranny of Facebook’s hegemony, but really I just want to read my Messages. Enjoy the web.