All You Need to Know About Facebook Free Basics on Airtel Nigeria

As you may have know already, Airtel in partnership with Facebook launched Free Basics which allows you browse about 89 websites free of charge.

What is free basics all about?
Free Basics by Facebook provides people with access to some services on their mobile phones in markets where internet access may be less affordable. The websites are available for free without data charges, and include content on things like news, employment, health, education and local information. By introducing people to the benefits of the internet through these websites, they hope to bring more people online and help improve their lives.

In collaboration with hundreds of developers, non-profits, and governments, Free Basics offers access to basic websites for local audiences.

Which Services are on Free Basics?
1. 24 All fun, tips & tricks
2. 24symbols
3. AccuWeather
4. Afribaba
5. Africa
6. ALL IN – By and for adolescents
7. AnatomyAtlases
8. Ask A Doctor by Kangpe
9. Ask
10. Azcorp Comics
11. BabyCenter
12. BBC News
13. BeSmart
14. Bing
15. Boost Apps
16. Careers24
17. Connect Smart
18. Daily Motivator
19. Dictionary
20. Diffusion Education Game Portal
21. DW – made for minds
22. Efritin
23. Emergency Information
24. Entertainment Store
25. ESPN
26. Facebook
27. Facts for Life
28. Free Books by Worldreader
29. FunDza
30. Funzi
31. Girl Effect
32. Goal
33. Gumtree
34. Health On Wheels
35. Health News Ng
36. HIV360
37. Hot Nigerian Jobs
38. Itztechnologies
39. I Am Purple
40. iLearn
41. Intel She Will Connect
42. Jerric
43. Jobberman
44. Khedoo – Mobile Dating App
45. LoveWords
46. Malaria No More
47. Mara Mentor
48. Matchup
49. Mathematics by TeachMe
50. Messenger
51. Money Matters
52. Mosquitoes: Product Your Family
53. Nairaland Forum
54. News24
55. Newsbyte
56. ngcareers
57. Nigeria Galleria
58. OLX
59. Onetouch
60. Pass.ng
61. Power Thesaurus
62. Refunite
63. RRisques
64. Scholars4Dev
65. SmartBusiness
66. smartSex
67. SmartWoman
68. Socialblood
69. SuperSport
70. Tambero
71. TechHints
72. Thesaurus
73. Translator
74. txti
75. U-Report
76. VConnect
77. Virtual Pediatric Hospital
78. Wattpad
79. Ways to make money online
80. Wecyclers
81. wikiHow
82. Wikipedia
83. Worldreader – Zika info
84. WTF is my IP
85. ebuzi
86. naij
87. yuzah
88. Your Money
89. Your rights

Is Freebasics really Free?
It’s free to an extent. The freebasics access for Airtel subscribers is not what most of us would enjoy because there are limitations, very obvious limitations!

If you go on Facebook to read people’s update or of you go to the above sites to read text content, this is very okay. But if you love watching videos and viewing friend’s pictures on Facebook, this is definitely not the best choice.

The Free basics service has what we call fair usage. It allows you to use services that doesn’t consume much data. You won’t be able to watch videos, view high quality graphics, download heavy stuffs, you also won’t be able to access services outside the free basics listed sites for free. When you need more, you will be asked to switch to data mode.

What else do I need to Know?
When you use Free Basics, you never leave Facebook’s domain. Any website that is available to Free Basics, is read by Facebook and then shown to you on the Free Basics domain itself. Your original request won’t touch the website you’re trying to reach. So technically, facebook acts as a proxy server / gateway.




Privacy on Free Basics

When you use Third-Party Services, facebook will route the request through their servers so your mobile operator knows to allow you to access that service free of data charges.
They receive and store the domain or name of the website you accessed through Free Basics, and the amount of data (e.g. megabytes) used when you access or use that service.
They store this information together with your phone number for 90 days, after which it is aggregated or otherwise de-identified.
They also collect device, browser, and usage information when you use Free Basics. Specifically, Facebook collect the type of device or browser and operating system you use, your app version, app ID and device ID, the time and date of your connection, your mobile operator, IP address, phone number, battery and signal strength, country, language setting, and the Third-Party Services/websites you search for or use in Free Basics.
Important things to Note:
Free basics limits to the afforemention websites, thus depriving you of all the internet has to offer.
You are not able to use Google as it is not among the sites listed, this will limit your ability to conduct researches, however, there is Ask and Bing.
You can’t access your email, as none of the major email providers are present.
The important information are being dissemated across the internet in various forms: videos, infographics, animations, audio etc you will miss out of all these if you stick to only using free basics.
There are over one billion websites in the world, free basics in Nigeria limits you to less than 100.
As the day goes internet cost keeps crashing, with as low as 25 Naira you can internet on MTN

To use free basics on your airtel SIM, dial *141# or go to 0.freebasics.com







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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the comment writers alone and does not reflect or represent the views of Philip Nwankwo.

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