Facebook has released a new version of the Messenger app, and it's both smaller to download and faster to load. The social network has managed this feat by rebuilding Messenger from the ground up, simplifying the app in an effort called Project LightSpeed.

Facebook detailed the new Messenger in a post on Facebook Newsroom. The company admits that due to the demands for more features, since its launch in 2011, Messenger became "harder to navigate and the architecture became increasingly complex."

Facebook Redesigns Messenger From the Ground Up

This inspired Facebook to redesign Messenger from the ground up. This began after the release of Messenger 4, and the new Messenger app is now available on iOS. The app is one-quarter of its original size, and will, according to Facebook, load twice as fast.

The three principles of the new Messenger are that it's faster, smaller, and simpler. The speed will make a huge difference to people who open Messenger multiple times a day, while the smaller size of the app will help people who use older devices.

Simplifying Messenger will help all users. The core code has been reduced by 84 percent, dropping from 1.7 million lines to 360,000 lines. This does mean some features will be temporarily unavailable, but Facebook promises to bring them back in future updates.

Those who want to delve deeper into the inner workings of the new Messenger should read this post on Facebook Engineering. The new Messenger should be available via an update over the next couple of weeks. There's no word yet on a new version for Android.

Merging Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram

The new Messenger is smaller, faster, and much simpler to use. All of which are positives for an app that was previously bloated, slow to load, and unnecessarily busy. Let's just hope Facebook can resist bringing back the bloat in future updates.

This is the first stage in Facebook's ambitious plan to merge Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The idea is to allow Facebook's three big apps operate in the same space together. Which would be difficult without rebuilding them from the ground up.