Facebook Explore Feed is a hidden News Feed that's a lot more interesting

Facebook has built an alternative News Feed that’s hidden within its side menu.

It’s called the Explore Feed and, on the site, you can find it in the left-hand column that runs alongside the main News Feed, alongside a symbol of a rocket.

In the app, you can access it by tapping the hamburger menu button above the News Feed and scrolling down to Explore Feed.

The big difference between the News and Explore feeds is that, while the former is populated mainly by updates from friends and the pages you follow, the latter comprises posts from sources you aren’t connected to.

It’s essentially a News Feed made up of content Facebook thinks you’ll be interested in.

My Explore Feed, for instance, is filled with videos and articles related to football and wildlife. There are other updates I’m not quite so interested in mixed up with them, but early impressions are very positive.

I don’t believe any of the same content has also surfaced on my News Feed and, somewhat unexpectedly, I’m yet to see an advert on Explore.

If things continue this way, the Explore Feed could become much more engaging than the News Feed.

The feature has been in testing since April, but is now rolling out to all users, on both mobile and desktop. It was first spotted on desktop by Matt Navarra.

Earlier this year, a Facebook spokesperson described Explore as a way of trying out a “complementary feed of popular articles, videos, and photos, customized for each person based on content that might be interesting to them”.