Facebook Turns Its Photo Uploader into a Plug-in

Facebook began rolling out a new photo uploader, one that the company hopes will be faster, easier and more stable than the live one.

In an announcement on Facebook’s blog, the company discovered that the new Facebook uploader is actually a browser plug-in. In order to upload photos, you have to install it.

Once that’s done, though, you will be recognise by a new user interface for uploading photos that links to your computer’s file directory. From Facebook, you can navigate your hard drive and pick out the photos you want. A preview part on the bottom of the uploader reaches it easy to pick the right pics out.

Oh, and it has another great feature: background uploads. You can navigate away from not only the upload page, but from Facebook itself while uploading photos. A notice will tell you that the uploads are complete.

We don’t like installation plug-ins unless we have to, only we can see why Facebook took this approach. Still, this will set some people from being able to upload, specially those at work with locked-down browsers.

What do you think: Is this a fast move by Facebook or are plug-ins a bad idea? Is it active for you? Let us know in the comments.