Android users beware: Facebook could be killing your smartphone’s battery

Uninstalling Facebook from Android smartphones could not only give handsets a performance boost, but extend their battery life.

Following an Android Central story discussing slowdown caused by Facebook for Android, a spate of Android smartphone users have been reporting increased battery life and faster performance after uninstalling the app.

Notably, Guardian tech reporter Samuel Gibbs says uninstalling the app netted him 20% more battery from his Nexus 6P on a daily basis.

Reddit user pbrandes_eth removed both Facebook and Facebook Messenger from his LG G4, after which benchmarks showed his device performing 15% faster. According to pbrandes_eth, both Facebook and Facebook Messenger equally contributed to the drop in performance.

While Facebook is an essential app for many, Android owners are still able to access the vast majority of functionality through Chrome, including push notifications. Alternatively, an app called Metal wraps the mobile web interface into a more compact package.

The drop in performance and battery life caused by Facebook's Android app is being attributed to the large number of processes it runs in the background.