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Facebook releases rumored ‘Hello’ dialer for Android phones with social caller ID and crowd-sourced blocking

Facebook has finally released the Android dialer that it was recently rumored to be working on. The “Hello” dialer displays Facebook-based information about who’s on the other end of an incoming call, such as their employer, birthday, and even the number of mutual friends you have on the social network.

The dialer only pulls data that you would normally have access to—info made public or set to be visible to friends of friends, for example—to protect the privacy of its users. A search bar lets users look up contact information for other Facebook users. Info about businesses is also available through the search function. You’ll be able to lookup hours of operation and location directly from the dialer.

Additional privacy options are also available that make it easy to block calls from people you don’t particularly want to hear from, and a crowd-sourced blocklist enables you to import a list of commonly blocked numbers to quickly get away from marketers and other annoying callers.

Because Hello was built by the Messenger team, it integrates tightly with that appliation, and can provide free VoIP calling through the chat app if it’s installed.

Hello is available for free on Android smartphones through the Google Play Store. You can see it in action in the video below:

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