After getting so much sticks for for violating net neutrality rules especially in India, Facebook has caved in a little by making significant improvements to the Internet.org services and also giving it a new name – ‘Free Basics‘.
Facebook has opened up the Internet.org platform to all developers, this means any developer can add their service in internet.org. This gives users more liberty, choice and control over what service(s) to use on the app and mobile web version. To add more to the list of free services, users can navigate to menu to select or search by name or description.
Asides the light rebranding in name and opening up the platform to developers, the other improvement comes in the areas of security and privacy. The service now promises HTTPS web services along with the encryption of information in place.
Free Basics is currently accessible to more than One Billion people in 19 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. About 60 new services has been added including BabyCenter and MAMA which both offer health information for pregnancy and parenting information.
The app and mobile website has also seen a name change, the app is now called Free Basics from Facebook and it can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. The mobile website can now be accessed from Freebasics.com even though it still redirects to the former website.
Source: Facebook Newsroom
Via: PCMag
