An early version of Facebook Lite is finally available to users in the U.S. and India via http://lite.facebook.com. Say goodbye to quizzes, farms and fortune cookies, because the much faster Facebook Lite is all about real-time status updates, events, photos/videos and messages.

UPDATE: Ahamed, one of our fans on Facebook, reports availability in Sri Lanka as well.

Here’s TechCrunch’s analysis:

Originally intended to be used in countries where high speed Internet connections are sparse or non-existant, apparently Facebook has realized there’s a real desire among all its users to have a smaller version of the service.

One great thing about Facebook Lite is that on top of being much cleaner, updates appear in real-time along the bottom of the page, something which is much nicer to look at then that ugly toolbar that is on Facebook Proper.

Of course, if you like applications on Facebook, you won’t like this version, as they are nowhere to be found. But the reason myself and many others started using Facebook in the first place was because of the social connections and data. I want to access this data as quickly as possible, I don’t care about playing games.

You’ll also notice that an “Events” tab has been added to the top toolbar. Again, this is much nicer than Facebook Proper, where events are buried in a sub-section. Also along the top, just above the Feed is a way to “View Top Stories” as opposed to those listed in order. I hate to keep repeating myself, but again, a great change.

You’ll also see that current and upcoming birthday for your contacts are at the top of the Feed.

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