gHacks technology news » firefox facebook http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Facebook Photo Album Downloader http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/28/facebook-photo-album-downloader/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/28/facebook-photo-album-downloader/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:47:39 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10834 If you are a Facebook regular with a solid amount of friends and activities you might have thought about downloading some of the contents, especially pictures but other multimedia content would do as well, from Facebook to the local computer. Think of photo albums that have been uploaded by friends, family or colleagues. It is possible to manually download individual photos from Facebook but it would surely be a time saver to download them all at once.

Facebook Photo Album Downloader is a Firefox extension that can download an entire Facebook photo album in one go. The firefox extension is actually pretty easy to use. All the user has to do is to right-click the View Album link on Facebook and select Download Album With FacePAD. A Javascript popup will appear telling the user that the download will initialize. The photos that are in the Facebook album will be downloaded in the default Firefox download directory.

facebook album download

If the selected photo album contains more than one page of photos multiple JavaScript popups will appear telling the user that the photos will be downloaded. The default value is 20 photos per page.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/28/facebook-photo-album-downloader/feed/ 9 Facebook Beacon Blocker http://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/25/facebook-beacon-blocker/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/25/facebook-beacon-blocker/#comments Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:02:04 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10124 Facebook Beacon is part of Facebook’s advertising efforts. It is basically a cooperation with 44 partner sites who execute JavaScript code on their website sending specific user information to Facebook. Examples would be the popular gaming portal Kongegrate which send information about played games to Facebook, movie reviews published at Fandango or purchases made on eBay. User identification is done by the JavaScript code and a Facebook cookie.

Facebook Beacon has been heavily criticized by privacy advocates since its introduction. The main point of criticism is that users cannot opt out completely. While they can prevent that information from the 44 partner sites will be published publicly and accessible by friends they cannot prevent Facebook from receiving the data in first place. There is no opt out of the system other than blocking the scripts from being executed.

Facebook Beacon Blocker is a Firefox add-on that will block the Facebook Beacon service from collecting and sending information about the user to Facebook. It basically blocks the script from being executed on the partner sites which is all it takes to turn the service off completely.

Users with Firefox add-ons like NoScript can also prevent that the Facebook Beacon script will be executed by simply keeping it disabled in the options.

facebook beacon

Here is the list of websites and companies that utilize the Facebook Beacon service:

  • AllPosters.com
  • Campusfood.com
  • Blockbuster
  • Bluefly.com
  • CBS Interactive (CBSSports.com & Dotspotter)
  • eBay
  • Epicurious
  • ExpoTV
  • Fandango
  • Gamefly
  • Hotwire
  • a number of IAC brands, including: CollegeHumor, Busted Tees, IWon, Citysearch, Pronto.com and echomusic
  • Joost
  • Kiva
  • Kongregate
  • LiveJournal
  • Live Nation
  • Mercantila
  • National Basketball Association
  • NYTimes.com
  • Overstock.com
  • (RED)
  • Redlight
  • SeamlessWeb
  • Sony Online Entertainment LLC
  • Sony Pictures
  • STA Travel
  • The Knot
  • Travelocity
  • Travel Ticker
  • TripAdvisor
  • TypePad
  • viagogo
  • Vox
  • WeddingChannel.com
  • Yelp
  • Zappos.com

Lots of popular sites that use the service. Might be time to block the Facebook Beacon service if you use any of those listed above.

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