Mark Zuckerberg’s social network is known to hold a gold mine regarding data. Users registered on Facebook, wherever they are in the world, are periodically asked to enter at least one personal telephone number. In this way, if you lose your password or can no longer log in, you will have another way to recover your data.
However, each user’s telephone number is also used for other purposes. First, other subscribers can use it to conduct searches, as indicated in the Privacy section of the Facebook settings.
The default setting, ” Everyone, “corresponding to the ” Who can look you up using the phone number you provided? ” speaks for itself. Not only. Facebook uses telephone numbers in combination with the other data of each account to build a sort of “friendship network.”
Recognize Unknown Numbers And Block Unwanted Calls
Facebook Hello is a new application of Mark Zuckerberg social network that aims to settle on users’ mobile devices by replacing the default Android interface. After the failed experiment of Facebook Home, the Menlo Park company tried again with Hello, essentially an alternative telephone dialer to the default Android one, which integrates many more features.
By exploiting the enormous amount of data stored on Facebook’s servers, Hello can recognize unknown numbers not present in the address book. How is it possible? When the call arrives, Facebook checks the contents of its databases and verifies who owns the caller’s telephone number.
Then, Facebook Hello is super effective at identifying unknown mobile phone numbers.
Furthermore, when a call arrives, Facebook Hello can determine if the caller is a friend of someone you already know. This way, you can immediately prepare for the “content” of the call. Leaving both the New numbers and Saved numbers settings active, when you first start Facebook Hello, the application will recognize unknown numbers in addition to those in your address book.
A very useful accessory feature of Facebook Hello is the ability to block unwanted calls. Unlike what is explained in the article How to block a phone number on Android, Facebook Hello also allows you to automatically block incoming calls from phone numbers that other users have most frequently blocked.
It is then possible to block calls with a hidden number (see How to discover a private number: Whooming news ). Upon incoming calls, Facebook will immediately search for a match between the caller’s telephone number and those stored within its databases.
By replacing the Android dialer (i.e., the module that allows dialing telephone numbers and searching among contacts) with that of Facebook Hello, it is possible to search for telephone numbers that are not in the address book (obtaining the name of the contact to which they belong). In the Search for people and places box, you can always search for contacts of interest by drawing on the boundless Facebook archive.
By selecting a contact, you can also attempt a free VoIP call using Facebook Messenger. Too bad that Facebook Hello does not display references to Facebook, Skype, and other accounts as Android does by default. You can customize the main Facebook Hello settings by touching the icon representing a small gear.
Facebook Hello And Privacy
Facebook Hello is not and cannot be synonymous with privacy. This can be understood immediately from the number of permissions that Facebook Hello requires at the installation time. Installing Facebook Hello effectively grants Zuckerberg’s social network the “pass” to access a vast amount of additional information about the user and his contacts.
If you don’t fear excessive interference by Facebook with your data, Hello is an app you can install without problems. Conversely, in case of fears regarding privacy, it is good to stay away from it.
How To Try Facebook Hello
Facebook Hello is currently out of stock, at least officially, for Italian users. By connecting with the page published on Google Play ( this one), you will notice that it is not possible to install Facebook Hello on your devices. To try Facebook Hello, however, you can download the corresponding. APK file from this page.
The download will not be made from Google Play, but the Facebook Hello installation file is legitimate and corresponds to the original. Once downloaded, you can install it on your Android device by activating the Unknown sources box in the Security section of the operating system settings.
Also Read: The Four Things To Do If Your Facebook Account Is Hacked
