The Will Conley Blog

How to Remove the Facebook News Ticker in Firefox or Chrome

2011-12-11T18:49:00.001-05:00

Granted, this ain't exactly for beginners, unless you're a smartypants, but I'm publishing it here anyway, because the news ticker is annoying as hell and it's sucking your life away, and you want to get rid of it.

That's Xibit, the rapper, actor, and host of the MTV show Pimp My Ride. That image of him has become an Internet "meme" (pronounced "meem"), or photograph in which anyone can write their own caption following a simple theme.

When Xibit first learned he had become a widespread meme, he wasn't pleased. He felt it made fun of him. Later, he realized it was all in good fun, and gave the meme his nod of approval. You can read about the Xibit "Yo Dawg" meme and view his reactions here.

What Is the Facebook News Ticker?

The joke in the Xibit meme above refers to the "news ticker" in the upper-right corner of the Facebook news feed that appears every time you sign in to Facebook through a computer Web browser. (It doesn't appear in the mobile versions of Facebook.)

The ticker scrolls through every status update, photo, video, game update, comment, like, song, and other activity that your friends post on Facebook -- in real time.

How the Facebook News Ticker Compromises Your Privacy

The Facebook news ticker never stops scrolling, and it can't be removed through Facebook's settings. Facebook pretends that the ticker does not affect your privacy, but it does.

By default, your friends -- and your friends' friends -- by viewing the news ticker -- can see everything you post, comment on, or "like" while you are signed in to Facebook.

And you can see everything they do, too.

Not only that, but not everyone realizes that all of their Facebook activities are being broadcast for their friends, family, and employers to see. It doesn't take a genius to realize why this is a massive breach of privacy.

In my opinion, it's a privacy emergency. But Facebook is the gorilla, and the gorilla can do what it wants. So we have to figure out a way to work around it, not defeat it, at least for the time being.

How to Stop Your Facebook Activities From Being Published on the Ticker

The only official way to reliably stop all of your own activities from appearing in the Facebook news ticker for your friends to see -- and likely for your friends' friends to see -- is to set your default privacy to absolute secrecy.

That is, you must set your Facebook privacy settings to be viewable by only you. And that, of course, would completely defeat the purpose of using Facebook.

This article is not about securing your own Facebook ticker privacy. For that, see this article at NakedSecurity. Just know that the method described there only works if every one of your Facebook friends cooperates.

Currently, you simply have almost no realistic control over your Facebook news ticker privacy.

Why You Would Want to Remove the Facebook News Ticker from Your View

This article is about removing the Facebook news ticker from your own view. I am going to show you how to remove that constant distraction, that fire hose of updates scrolling past you at breakneck speed. This will let you focus on the news feed in the main window, and rescue you from too much information.

After all, some things are none of your darn business, right?

How to Remove the Facebook News Ticker

If you need help with any part of the following guide, just drop a comment on this post or ask your question in the comment form in the right sidebar of this blog.

1. Get the Firefox or Google Chrome browser. It's free. Go to firefox.com or google.com/chrome. Install the browser to your computer. If you don't know how to do this, just follow the instructions Firefox or Chrome provides.

2. Install the Adblock Plus add-on or extension by visiting adblockplus.org and clicking the "Install" button. Restart your browser if asked to do so.

3. Add a New Filter. Don't worry. It's easy.

In Firefox:

Open your Adblock Plus preferences and click the "Add filter..." button.
Paste facebook.com###pagelet_rhc_ticker in the "New filter" field, then click "OK."

In Chrome:

Open your Adblock Plus options and click the "Add your own filters" tab.
Paste facebook.com###pagelet_rhc_ticker in the top empty field.

4. Go to facebook.com and sign in. If you are already on Facebook, just refresh the page.

The news ticker should now be gone, and you can finally Facebook without having to Facebook in the upper-right while you Facebook.

On Facebook.

With Xibit.

What are Facebook Application Developers?

2011-11-19T21:39:00.001-05:00

You may have run across the term "Facebook application developer" while exploring Facebook. A Facebook application developer is someone who writes, designs, and implements programs that integrate with Facebook.

An app can be a way to view the New York Times inside Facebook, a method of organizing your friends and family differently, an addictive game like Farmville or Mafia Wars, or anything you can think of.

As of November 2011, more than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with Facebook.

The F8 Developers Conference, 2011

How Does Facebook Application Development Affect Me?

Facebook application development is not something you need to worry about as a general Facebook user, and you will never have to write any code when using Facebook.

But it's smart to get a general understanding about how Facebook apps are developed, so that you will be a wiser, safer, sexier Facebook user.

Not that you could possibly get any sexier than you already are. Seriously, look at you.

Who Can Become a Facebook Application Developer?

Anyone is allowed to write and submit apps for Facebook. At last estimate, there were over a million Facebook application developers.

You can be a 12-year-old kid typing away at your bedroom computer or a multi-billion-dollar mega-corporation like Microsoft, and you can develop apps for Facebook just the same. Ain't the Internet grand?

Of course, the 12-year-old probably doesn't have an astronomical advertising budget to get the word out about the app, but still!

If you are interested in creating a Facebook app, visit developers.facebook.com.

Examples of Facebook Application Developers

The following three examples are some of the most successful Facebook app developers:

The "We're Related" Facebook application helps users find and list their family members on Facebook, which is a convenient way to build a family tree. The genealogists and software developers at familylink.com were the first to company to implement a successful, widely adopted Facebook app for genealogy.

The "BandPage" Facebook app lets bands and musicians share and promote their music with their fans on Facebook. The application developers at RootMusic created the BandPage app, which has been installed by over 250,000 musicians on Facebook as of November, 2011.

A company called Zynga is the most successful Facebook application developer. They're famous for Facebook games like Farmville, Texas Hold 'em Poker and Mafia Wars. As of November 2011, Zynga's apps had over 204 million monthly active users.

Can Facebook Application Developers See My Information?

Facebook developers can see your private information only if you give an application express permission to access your Facebook data. Even when an app is installed and running on your profile, your privacy settings can be set such that only your friends, or even a highly select group, can see your information.

To adjust your app privacy settings, log in to Facebook, and then visit https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications.

Closing Remark

As always, this is just a very general introduction to a huge Facebook topic. Let me know if you have any questions! I promise to answer them.

What is a Facebook Business Page?

2011-11-18T22:00:00.001-05:00

A Facebook business page is like a regular Facebook profile, but for businesses. Facebook pages can also be created by non-profits and other organizations, brands, products, celebrities, and other entities. Businesses who want to create a presence on Facebook are required create a page, and not a personal profile.

Who Can Create a Facebook Business Page?

Anyone create a Facebook page. If you want to create a page for your business, go to facebook.com/pages and click the "Create Page" button in the upper right corner of the screen. Facebook walks you through the process.

Why Create a Facebook Business Page?

Some of the benefits of creating a Facebook page are:

It's free!

It's advertising and marketing!

It's the new thing and everyone is doing it! Seriously, every serious business should have a Facebook page.

It lets you publicly communicate directly with individual customers, clients, fans, journalists and other entities.

It lets said entities publicly communicate directly with you.

It's safe. No one can privately contact a Facebook page administrator via a page, and administrators cannot contact their page's fans via the page. Facebook page administrators don't even need to reveal their identities, but they can if they wish to.

It's flexible and fluid. Anyone can "like" (click the "Like" button) a Facebook page, which creates a connection between the person and the page. Anyone can "un-like" a page too, just as easily. This is called "opt-in marketing" by marketing professionals, a job title which I have been known to hold on many occasions.

It's better than email spam by a long shot. Opt-in marketing puts the power in the hands of consumers, which in turn makes them happier consumers.

What are the Drawbacks of Facebook Business Pages?

Some of the drawbacks are:

Administrators and fans can't communicate with each other privately via Facebook business pages. Only personal profiles can communicate with other personal profiles.

Facebook business pages don't have the privacy settings personal profiles have. For example, Facebook administrators can't post updates to just a highly customized set of fans, while Facebook profiles can post updates to any combination of their friends.

It's hard to get Facebook page fans. Since Facebook pages are less personal than Facebook profiles, people tend to interact less with pages than they do with other regular profiles.

"Should I Create a Facebook Business Page?"

The answer to that question depends on two other questions.

Do you already have a personal Facebook profile? If not, hold off on creating a Facebook page. Create a personal profile instead by visiting facebook.com and signing up. Learn what Facebook is like. Experiment as a regular profile user. "Like" some other pages to get a feel for what it's like to be a page fan. That way, you'll be able to empathize with your fans when you create a Facebook page down the line.

Do you have something to promote? If so, you should probably create a Facebook page. However, if you only promote, say, a mystery book you wrote (as my dad did), and you only do it some of the time, then consider just promoting it within your personal Facebook profile. That way you won't have two separate Facebook presences to manage. A Facebook business page is at its most effective when you spend quality time updating it, promoting it, and responding to fans.

But try it out anyway! You can always delete your Facebook page if you decide you don't want it on the Internet anymore.

Closing Comments

This is just a very, very basic introduction to Facebook pages. In keeping with this blog's theme of catering to beginners, I left out plenty of details. But this should give you a solid, general idea as to what a Facebook page is. You can now impress your friends and family with your vast technical knowledge.

As always, please feel free to ask me anything you want to know about Facebook. Oh, and check out my fan page for my side project, The Devil's Dictionary, Volume Two. (Warning: Only read if you like smirking at this crazy world.)

What is Subscribing on Facebook?

2011-11-15T21:10:00.001-05:00

If you subscribe to a person or page on Facebook, you will get instant email notifications (and notifications inside Facebook) for that person's posts. That might mean his posts are especially important to you, and by subscribing you will never miss a post. If you were not subscribed, you would likely miss most of that person's posts unless you remember to seek them out regularly.

How to Send a Message to All Your Facebook Friends

2011-11-15T21:07:00.001-05:00

The best way to send a message to all of your Facebook friends is to post a status update. The status update will show up on your own wall and in your friends' "news feeds," which is a chronological timeline of posts, latest posts first.

To post a status update:

1. Log in to Facebook.

2. Click either the Facebook logo in the upper left area of the screen or your name in the upper right area of the screen.

3. Update your status.

If you clicked the Facebook logo in Step 2: If you clicked the Facebook logo, you will see the "news feed" of your friends' posts in the main window. Click "Update Status" near the top of the news feed. A status update box appears below. You can type in that box any message you like. Then click the "Post" button below the box. Your update instantly shows up in your friends' news and on your own wall.

If you clicked your username in Step 2: If you clicked your username, you will see your own wall with a status update box near the top of the page. Type in that box and click "Post." Your update instantly shows up in your friends' news and on your own wall.

You can also send a private message to many friends at once, but use that very, very sparingly as it is considered spammy to do it often.

Can I Delete "Friend Accepted" Email Notifications?

2011-11-15T21:02:00.001-05:00

When you send someone a friend request and the person accepts, you will receive an email notification from Facebook. You can delete that email, as you will not need it for future reference.

What is a Facebook "Like"?

2011-11-15T20:59:00.001-05:00

To "like" something on Facebook means to show you liked it. Pretty straightforward, there. Just click the "Like" link under a status update, photo, video, link, or anywhere on the Internet where you see a Facebook "Like" button.

Facebook Comments

2011-11-15T20:46:00.001-05:00

You can respond to individual posts if you want by clicking "Comment" where it appears below a post. Type a message and press enter.

If you mess up and want to delete the comment, hover your mouse over your comment and click the "X" that appears in the upper right corner of the comment. This deletes the comment, but some users may already have seen your comment, because they might have received a copy of the original comment via email.

What is a Facebook News Feed?

2011-11-15T20:45:00.001-05:00

The "news feed" is where your friends' posts appear. Your posts appear in your friends' news feeds as well. News feed posts appear in reverse chronological order, i.e., the newer posts appear near the top of the news feed.

You can view the news feed by clicking the Facebook logo in the upper left area of the screen.

What is a Facebook Wall?

2011-11-15T20:27:00.001-05:00

Your "wall" is the main place where you can post all your updates. Your friends can see those updates by default. Your friends can also post things to your wall, and you can post things to other people's walls.