..its in messenger, which is a required separate install, that I don't install, so I'm safe

The website is pretty bad too, but ads are easy to block and it gives Facebook less rights on your device (as opposed to native app).

It's an option, but now I just use WhatsApp. I have a small number of groups for the people I care about, and now that WhatsApp has better archiving, I find it quite a pleasant user experience. I can even see photos someone shared to my group more than a year ago. I find Facebook redundant, because I don't aspire to be a pseudo-celebrity amongst people who hardly know me!

I can't use Facebook with all the ads and noise. I've blocked mine down to just the news feed, everything else goes away. Much cleaner and easier to use.

You can turn notifications off...

I tried, but the birthday notifications kept coming (Galaxy Note 4). Then started the "Person A has posted after a long time", or the even more general "Person A has uploaded a photo". Each time, my mental response to each notification was "So what?!"

In defence of "Person A has posted after a long time", that might be a good indicator that they've posted something important, or interesting enough to get them onto Facebook to share it. At a guess I'd probably rather see these than the usual spam from the really active people.

I haven't used the app in a long time.. did they get rid of chat heads? That drove me off completely.

I hated them and can confirm they're optional (at least on android)