The popularity of Facebook shows no signs of abating, and after annoying a large percentage of its users with the forced introduction of the timeline, the social network has released a Windows app to help irate visitors fall back in love with the site. Facebook Messenger for Windows is a standalone app that provides you with access to your online friends ready for chatting and keeps you up to date with everything that is happening with your Facebook account without the need to visit the site itself.

Anyone who has used the mobile version of the Facebook Messenger app will know pretty much what to expect here, but the app has more in common with the mobile Facebook app really. By default you are shown a list of your online friends that you are able to chat with as well as the news ticker from the Facebook web site itself. This enables you to keep up to date with what your friends are up to on Facebook and clicking any of the posts that appear here will transport you to the main Facebook site.

Bypass the browser and chat with a Facebook app

Just like the main mobile Facebook app, the Windows Facebook Messenger app features there icons at the top of the program window. These can be used to access your friend requests, messages and notifications but, oddly, when you click a message that you have received, you do not see the rest of the conversation thread in the app, but instead are taken to the Facebook web site – this seems a little strange considering the name of the app would imply a strong focus on messaging.

But the two main features of the app are the instant notifications it can provide when you are tagged in photos, receive a message and other Facebook, as well as access to Facebook chat. While there is no way to set the Facebook Messenger window to always appear on top of any other programs you might have running, you do have the option of switching to docked mode in which the window is transformed into a panel at the right hand side of your screen and is visible at all times. There is currently no concrete news on the release of an OS X version of the app, but there will undoubtedly be one available at some point in the future.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the app by paying a visit to the Facebook Messenger for Windows review page.