The app itself is great but Facebook has restrictions on third party apps

I like the way Astro works. It delivers on its promise. I can chat with all my friends and family and most importantly, I can chat in group conversations, which I think Astro is the only desktop app to support. I’ve tried setting up Adium and Apple Messages and I don’t get group chats, which is a feature I use every day.

The issue that prevents me from using Astro is that I sent a lot of links to my friends (who doesn’t?), and for some reason, Facebook blocks those links, without Astro telling me about it. The first few time I asked my friends why they weren’t following up on my links. After checking the Facebook web interface, I noticed the links weren’t showing in the conversation. When I sent them through the web interface, I got asked to completed a captcha, every single time, for every link.

Because of that I stopped using Astro and eventually Facebook stopped prompting me to complete the captcha. It was fine until I downloaded Astro again and the issue came back. Facebook probably thinks that so many links sent in that short amount of time is spam, coming from a third party app, and blocks them. So I’m back to using the web interface, which is a pain because it’s not a great interface. I’m thinking of trying out Google Hangout again, see if they improved.

JonRaphael about Astro for Facebook Messenger