NEW YORK: Now you can also access Facebook Messenger on the web and chat from your desktop computer. But one can already chat with contacts while using Facebook on the web -- so what's the novelty?

Well, according to Facebook, the Messenger tool will help users chat "without distractions" that may come on the main page of the social networking site.

The social network unveiled a web version of Messenger recently. The product is accessible at Messenger.com and resides outside of Facebook.

But the new Messenger tool would still require a Facebook account. Messenger.com is for users who want to message without the other distractions that Facebook can provide. If you're messaging through Facebook, that means News Feed and your friends' user profiles are nearby.

"Messenger.com is a way to keep messaging as the focus... Facebook has no plans to remove messaging from its core web service," a spokesperson said.

The company already provided the application on mobile, requiring users to download the separate Messenger app in order to send and receive messages from their phone.

One of the reasons Facebook made this change on mobile was that it wanted to more easily build features into the messaging app such as a new developer platform that lets outside parties build features for Messenger.

The spokesperson said Messenger.com will support a lot of these features as well. Messenger is already available to English-speaking users worldwide, and will launch with other languages in the coming weeks.

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