Feed Filter

New in this version:

• Fixed News Feed posts not being hidden because of a Facebook change.
• Added an option to move or hide “Recommended Pages” in the right sidebar.
• Added an option to hide “changed their profile picture” News Feed posts.

Install version 2.0.2 here

Hi all,

Just a note to say that I’m aware of the problems with version 2.0.1 not hiding things correctly anymore. It appears Facebook changed the News Feed page again. I should have a new version for you very soon.

Thanks,
Russell

Feed Filter 2.0.1 is now available.

New in this version:

• Fixed “likes a page” posts not being hidden when the page is outside of Facebook.
• Added an option to hide “updated their profile” posts (“added a school or job”, “updated their current city”, etc.)

Feed Filter 2.0.0 is now available.

New in this version:

• Removed all features that hide ads or contact Facebook’s servers directly or indirectly. This was unfortunately necessary in order to keep from being shut down by Facebook. :-(
  The following features have been removed:
  • Remove “Recent Activity” posts from your Wall
  • Keep your Home page on the “Most Recent” News Feed
  • Expand “SHOW SIMILAR POSTS”
  • View all comments
  • Load “Older Posts” until a certain number are shown
  • Hide ads in the right sidebar, and all other ads
• Fixed hiding stories by type on Top News feed.

For more information on why these features had to be removed, please see the last few posts on this blog, about the Cease and Desist letter I received from Facebook’s lawyer — especially these two posts:

• Cease and Desist Letter Received from Facebook for Feed Filter
• Good News!

After reading the details of the Cease and Desist letter from Facebook again, I realized that the reason they sent it might not be exactly what I thought it was the first time I read it. So I called the lawyer and ended up having an honest, open talk with him about it, and learned more about the particular issues that Facebook has a problem with. It basically comes down to two things:

1. Hiding ads.  Yes, this is no surprise, but the reason might not be because of what you think.  It’s not necessarily just because they want to make more money.  It’s because they sell advertising space to some other company, who pays for a certain number of ad “views”.  If Facebook displays the ad on the page and counts that as a view, but the ad gets hidden and the user doesn’t actually see it, the company gets charged for something they didn’t get — and then they get mad at Facebook.
2. Connections back to the Facebook web servers.  It might appear as though Feed Filter just deals with the browser on the local user’s side, but features like removing Recent Activity posts from your wall send requests to Facebook’s web site to remove the post.  And for other features like loading “Older Posts” or expanding “similar posts”, Feed Filter clicks the links for you, which causes the browser to connect to Facebook’s web site to load more posts.  This can result in extra hits to their servers.  Whether that number is higher than it would be if you just clicked the link yourself is up for debate, as is whether or not the requests are being made too often, or if it’s really a problem for their servers — but certainly some programs could cause a lot of extra hits to their servers if they weren’t careful.  Facebook has decided they don’t have time to check out each individual program to see if the extra hits are causing a problem, so they’ve taken the stance that they just don’t allow any outside programs to connect to their servers at all.

Regardless of whether or not we agree with everything about these points, it was at least good to finally have a clear understanding of what they have a problem with.

So in the face of possibly having to shut down Feed Filter completely, I proposed a possible solution…

I suggested that I could remove the features that were in conflict with the points above, in hopes that I could keep the features that operated purely on the local browser side, and still keep Feed Filter alive.  I think there are still lots of good features that can be kept in Feed Filter even after removing the ones they don’t like. The lawyer said he would pass my proposal along to Facebook, and see if we could get it approved.

So in the meantime, I’m working on a new version that will be similar to the last one, but with the following features removed:

• Remove “Recent Activity” posts from your Wall
• Keep your Home page on the “Most Recent” News Feed
• Expand “SHOW SIMILAR POSTS”
• View all comments
• Load “Older Posts” until a certain number are shown
• Hide ads

But the following features will still be in Feed Filter:

• Hide posts based on their type: “is friends with”, “became a fan”, “joined a group”, “was tagged”, “events”, “relationships”, and applications.
• Show specific applications (the “Apps to show” tab on the Options window)
• Create links for applications (the “Apps to link” tab on the Options window)
• Display posts for just one application (FarmVille, Mafia Wars, etc.)
• Move or hide sections in the right sidebar, except ads (the “Sidebar” tab on the Options window)
• Expand filters on the left side of the Home page
• Expand long posts and comments (with “See More” links)
• Hide all comments

Look for version 2.0.0 to be announced here and on Feed Filter’s fan page on Facebook very soon.  And when I hear more from Facebook about my proposal, I’ll let you know.

Thanks,
Russell

I thought I should clear up a few things before Feed Filter has to be removed.

• Feed Filter can be downloaded and saved for later by right-clicking the install link and selecting “Save Link As”. The .xpi file you save can then be dragged into any Firefox window to install it later.
• Feed Filter will continue to run in your browser until Facebook makes changes to their site that cause it to stop being able to find what it needs on the page.
• On the Help tab of the Feed Filter Options window, there is a link to open the Help file that’s included with the add-on. Clicking that link will open a local copy of both the Help and FAQ pages from your hard drive — these are the same files that are on my web site, but they will remain installed on your computer until you uninstall Feed Filter.

• Feed Filter is a Firefox add-on written mainly in JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.
• The source code for Feed Filter can be viewed by renaming the .xpi file to have a .zip extension, and then unzipping it. You’ll find all of the code, images, and other files in the zip file.
• After Feed Filter is installed in Firefox, the source code can also be viewed in this directory on your local hard drive:
  C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[profile]\extensions\facebookfilter@chocolatesoftware.com
  Or on a Mac, here:
  [username]/Library/Firefox/Profiles/[profile]/extensions/facebookfilter@chocolatesoftware.com
• Feed Filter is open source, and licensed by the Mozilla Public License, version 1.1.
• Information about how to make Firefox add-ons is available on Mozilla’s site.

• Although I appreciate the words of encouragement to follow this up with lawyers or the EFF, I’m sorry to say that for several reasons, I won’t be taking this matter any further.
• It’s been a lot of fun working on Feed Filter, and I’m sorry to see it go. Thanks everyone!

 
If you have any other specific questions, feel free to contact me.

Thanks!
Russell

I have received a Cease and Desist letter from Facebook’s lawyers for Feed Filter.

The letter says that Feed Filter is designed to interfere with the proper rendering of Facebook pages in violation of Facebook’s Statement (http://www.facebook.com/terms.php), which says:

• You will not do anything that could disable, overburden, or impair the proper working of Facebook, such as a denial of service attack.
• You will not facilitate or encourage any violations of this Statement.

It also says that Feed Filter “may violate a number of laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. paragraph 1030; the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, CA Penal Code paragraph 502(c); as well as state law prohibiting interference with Facebook’s business expectations and interests.”

I must respond by this Friday, April 30th, 2010, confirming that I will stop offering Feed Filter for download, as well as refrain from developing any browser program in the future that interacts with Facebook.

Since I have neither the resources nor the inclination to fight this, and since they may well be within their rights, I plan on complying with their request.

I will soon remove Feed Filter from my web site as well as from Mozilla’s site for Firefox Add-ons.  After that time, I will not release any new versions of Feed Filter.

At the time of this writing, there are almost 8,000 fans of the Feed Filter fan page on Facebook, and there have been close to 100,000 downloads of the Feed Filter add-on.  My sincere thanks go out to all the users that have supported my efforts and provided words of encouragement throughout the life of the program. You made all the hard work worthwhile.  Thank you!

Russell Gilbert

Feed Filter 1.4.5 is now available.

New in this version:

• Fixed “Recent Activity” posts sometimes not being removed correctly.

Install version 1.4.5 here.

Feed Filter 1.4.4 is now available.

New in this version:

• Added the ability to hide duplicate posts. (see the General tab of the Options window)
• Fixed “View all comments” feature sometimes not expanding comments.

Feed Filter 1.4.3 is now available.

New in this version:

• Fixed a problem with the right Sidebar sections (Requests, Suggestions, Sponsored…) sometimes not being hidden or moved correctly because of a Facebook change to the Home page.
• Fixed app filter pages when using “&show_hidden=true” at the end of the URL.
• Updated Songbird compatibility to versions 1.7.*