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Facebook Blocker Extension, Block Facebook Scripts

Most weblogs and a lot of other websites have started to use Facebook scripts on their Internet pages. The most prominent script is Facebook Like, which displays a like button and the “likes” on the web page. Likes are basically votes for that page by Facebook users. There are other Facebook scripts, like recommendations for instance or the dreaded Facebook wall of profile photos that can appear on websites as well.

Facebook Blocker is a web browser extension that blocks those Facebook plugins and scripts from appearing on third party websites. The scripts will still work fine on Facebook. Scripts that are integrated directly and by the use of iFrames are blocked. A positive side effect is that it will also block Facebook from tracking the browsing history much like tracking cookies do. (It needs to be noted that it is not entirely clear if and how Facebook tracks users through their scripts)

Facebook Connect, which is a service by Facebook to offer sign-in to services using their Facebook account, will continue to work on third party sites as well.

The Facebook Blocker extension removes the Facebook script from the website so that it is not executed or visible anymore. This is an automated process. The user basically needs to install the extension and keep it activated for as long as Facebook content’s should be blocked in the web browser.

Facebook Blocker is available for Google Chrome, Safari and Mozilla Firefox. Downloads are provided directly on the project homepage over at Webgraph.

Update: Users may also experience that sites who have implemented Facebook scripts load considerably faster after the installation of the extension. This can be attributed to the fact that less items need to be downloaded to render the page.

Related Articles:

Facebook Beacon Blocker
Comment Blocker, Block Comments In Firefox
Facebook Disconnect, Block Communication Between Websites And Facebook
Facebook Hacking Scripts On UserScript.org Are Fake, Or Worse
Touchpad Blocker, Block Accidental Keyboard With Touchpad Actions

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.

Author: , Monday December 13, 2010 -
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Responses so far:

  1. Heinrich says:

    Cool!
    I strongly dislike Facebook so this is a very useful extension for everyone like me.

  2. Jojo says:

    I’ve been running something similar that I found in the NoScript forum:

    In the Options|ADvanced|ABE|User section, add:

    # This one allows Facebook scripts and objects to be included only
    # from Facebook pages
    Site .facebook.com .fbcdn.net
    Accept from .facebook.com .fbcdn.net
    Deny INCLUSION(SCRIPT, OBJ, SUBDOC)

    I haven’t checked lately if this needs to be updated due to FB changes.

    • Martin says:

      Jojo is it affecting Facebook Connect on third party sites as well?

      • Jojo says:

        It is supposed to. What would I look for to verify?

      • Martin says:

        Well Facebook Connect is used to use Facebook accounts to log into third party websites or use Facebook user information on their sites. You can see it on sites like Techcrunch for instance http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/13/google-zetawire/#disqus_thread

      • Jojo says:

        I checked your link and I do see a “F Connect” link. After enabling “facebook.net” scripts, I tried clicking on that button. THis took me to a pop-up window that showed:

        =============
        Facebook Login

        Log in to use your Facebook account with TechCrunch Disqus.
        =============

        So it looks like this code is not working? There is some more detail on NoScript ABE and that facebook script here:

        http://noscript.net/abe/

  3. Thomas says:

    Yeah, I was searching for this since a while. Browsed already through userscripts and was wondering why there is no such script. Will try it out immediately.

  4. mona says:

    I am using facebook blocker application called FBBlock http:www.fbblocker.com to prevent my daughter playing and chatting with unknown people while we were working.
    It works fine till now.

  5. qq says:

    I don’t like extensions which are not published in firefox oficial addons page!

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