Eliminate Facebook ads in Chrome and Firefox
Facebook is what many of us would consider a "necessary evil." We do not necessarily like it, but we are there because everyone we know is there as well. The service is free, supported by ads, which is fine -- after all many free sites, including this one, would likely not be able to continue without those ads.
However, somehow it seems that Facebook ads just have a way of being more annoying than those on other web sites. However, there are ways to block them if you are using either Firefox or Chrome as your web browser.
While there may be apps to handle this, a simple user script is all you need. If you are using Firefox then installing Greasemonkey is the route to take, while if you are on Chrome then Tampermonkey is the best solution, although scripts can be launched in Chrome without its aid.
If you have either of the aforementioned plugins installed -- depending on which browser you are using -- then head over to userscripts.org and download and run "Facebook Ad Remover."
The script has been tested and verified to work with Mac OSX 10.7, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows XP and Ubuntu 12.04. While it is likely that it could work with any operating system capable of running either of these two browsers, those are the only "verified" versions.
What does it do?
You can not help but notice the ads down the right side of your Facebook homepage. Running this script will block those ads from appearing, but if you visit your personal page, or those of your friends, you will still see those ads. So, in other words, this is not a complete block, however it does also expand your news feed.
"Removes annoying Facebook Ads, and expands the newsfeed to fill in the space where the ads used to be!"
Conclusion
Facebook Ad Remover makes a great addition to your main page, but I only wish it worked across the entire site. Perhaps that ability can be built into a future version. On the whole, I would still recommend using this script.
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Are users of Windows 8/RT with E10 doomed to watch Facebook, ADF.LY and other ads as there are no wy in add userscripts to IE10 ?
To Facebook users who want to remove all the ads I would advice the free program Social fixer.
Works with all browsers and can do much more than just removing the ads.
I think its a must have.
I use the IRON browser, by SR Ware… the portable version (though it would matter, not, which version is used, for our purposes, here). Iron is a dead-ringer for Chrome, but without the privacy violations. I used to complain that the only thing it didn’t do that Chrome does is support Cloud Printing; but there’s now an Iron hack for that. So, for purposes of this article, I use Chrome, for all intents and purposes.
Systemwide, I also use a HOSTS file which is a blend of three pre-configured, volunteer-maintained, publicly-downloadable-for-free: The “MVPS Hosts” file, the “hpHosts Partial” and “hpHosts Ads and Tracking” files, and the “Peter Lowe’s Adservers list” file; all of which are maintained and auto-updated using the freeware “HostsMan” by Abelha Digital.
Within Chrome, I also use “Adblock Plus,” using EasyList; the “DO-NOT-TRACK-ME” extension; and the “Ghostery” extension… but all three considerably tweaked and with custom filters and/or with certain default filterings unchecked.
I also use OpenDNS, rather than the default DNS that comes with my Internet Service Provider’s (ISP’s) services.
Between the five things, by hook or by crook, I see no ads on Facebook. In fact, until I unchecked a couple of things, I almost couldn’t see Facebook… period. And in order to finally see Facebook-based comments beneath articles on blogs and newspaper/newsmagazine websites, I had to go find, in any of these, where “Facebook Connect” was filtered, and unfilter it.
The bottom line result is that I haven’t seen an ad on Facebook — or pretty much anything else, for that matter — in I-can’t-even-remember how long…
…all without the script prescribed in the article to which this is a comment.
It’s good, though, to read that TamperMonkey (TM) isn’t, technically, required in Chrome to run it, because though I love TM, I notice that it’s a tiny bit resource intensive; and when the browser gets “tired” (has been open too long without closing, and so has accumulate enough cache files to warrant an external hard drive just to hold them), it tends to be TM that keeps showing-up in the lower left corner as that for which the browser is waiting whenever there’s a delay accessing a webpage. I, in fact, finally disabled TM in my copy of Chrome, simply because of that irritation.
Anyway, for whatever all that’s worth.
________________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
I use Adblock Plus with Element hiding helper for removing ads on almost all services, including Facebook, GMail, and so on. In essence, Element Hiding Helper does exactly what userscript would do, but I use the addon because it’s easier to select a part of a web page and create a filter from it in order to hide it.
As what Nebulus said, Adblock Plus (even the standard EasyList or FanBoy listings) will get rid of Facebook ads. Deselecting the “Allow non-intrusive ads” will further get rid of ads. I use it because it’s easy and quick about removing ads (or just plain images I don’t want to see) with a few small clicks. It’s also easy to setup rules for the unconventional types of ads.