Facebook for iOS Now Lets Users Share Web Links Without Leaving the App

Facebook for iOS has got a new feature that lets people find and share links within the app. The company is calling the new feature 'Add a link', and it is meant to ensure people don't have to leave the app when searching for Web links. The new 'Add a link' icon appears just above the keyboard of the app and will enable users to search for and share links from within the app. Facebook has confirmed that it is working towards launching the feature on Messenger as well as on its Android app.

Until now, if users of the Facebook for iOS app wanted to share links with friends they had to leave the app, open a browser then do a search for a Web link, copy the URL, and then come back to the Facebook app to share it. The new feature is an attempt to remove this tedious task for iOS app users.

"Whenever you want to share a specific Web link in your posts, just tap the new link icon, type in a few keywords to search for a link from our index of posts, and share it," explains Facebook.

Facebook in a post has detailed how the 'Add a link' feature became a reality stating that Rousseau Kazi, a product manager who worked on search, in January made the first move on the feature.

Notably, Facebook has revealed that it has over a trillion posts of shared links. "While our index of over a trillion posts was full of shared links, Facebook Search had never surfaced them like this, so we needed to find ways to rank and return this content," said Facebook.

The new 'Add a link' feature is likely to be useful for users; though, most importantly it makes sure that users remain on the app and doesn't move away to another app for a particular function.

Recently, Facebook enabled users without an account to sign up for its Messenger app with a phone number.