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:
- 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.
- 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
Great news! I’m glad you revisited this, I could not understand from what you posted prior how Facebook had a leg to stand on, but this makes more sense. If Facebook is reasonable at all, they’ll accept your changes and move on.
I sure hope you can reach an agreement with the Big Boys. However, as a CURRENT FF user, I am very tempted to avoid such an upgrade – I loaded this program at first just for your “Most Recent” Feed solution! I don’t want to lose that.
Shoot, the ads are obnoxious (like nearly everywhere), but most of us are accustomed to them. But reverting to Top News will force my hand to drop Face Book altogether – yup, they don’t care since I don’t make them any money…
@Brent
Try AdBlock Plus, it can block the advertisements on Facebook (and other sites).
It’s a shame that some of the core features need to be removed, but I suppose a whittled-down version is better than nothing. Keep up the great work! :)
Wait… Facebook has ads? Who knew??
Russell, thanks so much for your perseverance with FF over time! If you release a new version as described above, I hope you’ll give it a different extension name. As the “Remove recent activity” feature is my reason for using FF, I plan to run FF 1.5 until it stops removing recent activity — so I wouldn’t install a version that replaces it.
Russ, you’re really the hero of the last days. To connect to the lawyers shows a high level of initiative I’m sure everybody respects. Removing those features is an absolutely accaptable alternative to keep this bustin application alive. Thank you so much! Tom
Apparently they haven’t been able to push their weight around w/ adblock.. They are doing the same thing.
talk to FB’s lawyer again and urge this upon him or her:
People do NOT want FB to tell them how they have to view the news stream. FB’s implementation is to keep defaulting to the so-called and poorly named “Top News” (it isn’t). FB’s implementation forces people to return to their home pages to get rid of the recent activity crap — FB themselves used to allow us a setting for that. FB needs to return to that. People who WANT to see older posts should be able to configure their stream to show that. People who WANT to see all the comments expanded, or who WANT to see the full comment instead of the “read more”, should be allowed to configure it thus. Just keep putting more ads in, if that’s what it takes to get FB to stop effing around on their content providers.
If you please.
I’m waiting for some enterprising youngster to create an anti-facebook with the draw of fb, but without the BS.
I agree with Brent. The key feature for me is the ability to keep on the Most Recent feed.
Sadly disappointed we will be losing the “Remove Recent Activity” portion of the program. This was the part of the app that was most important to me. I can ignore ads, but removing the “recent activity” one post at a time is a real pain. I can’t see why that would interfere with the almighty FB gods. They could learn so much about what we want and don’t want from you….
If they didn’t force all these unwanted features on us, this would be something that was never an issue.
Personally, after the continual lack of attention to privacy, and the repeated, FUs to loyal users, I’m considering dropping facebook altogether. Hopefully something better comes along, I’d rather make them out to be Myspace… a fad whose time has passed.
I agree with Brent, Marty and Shannon. I can’t see how Remove Recent Activity can be a problem with FB…
WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Russell I agree most with gekko, you should tell the FB lawyer what FB users REALLY WANT TO SEE ON THE NEWS FEEDS AND THEIR WALLS and to bring back the previous privacy controls we had to keep us from posting that crap in the first place! AND GO BACK TO 1 NEWS FEED, THE RECENT NEWS NOT THE TOP NEWS CRAP! At least MySpace LISTENS to it’s users AND does things to please it users too. I still keep my MySpace profile just for this reason as I find it to be a lot more private then FB right now! As for the ads, I use AdBlock Plus anyway which has nothing to do with you anyway, I keep your adblocker turned off on your filter so they don’t interfere with each other anyway.and I don’t use the recent activity remove function either so I won’t miss that anyway. Just my thoughts
W.A.
Well, this sucks! I downloaded and installed FF because it would ungroup similar posts. I play games on FB and the similar posts thing was & is a major pain in the butt. I thought FF would be the saving grace, but I see now I was wrong. I will be uninstalling the app from from browser.
FB is really loosing it!!!!
Now Facebook is sueing Microsoft, Mozilla, Google, Opera and other browser vendors because they make programs that allow size its windows too tight so ads are requested to servers but not efectivelly displayed. Facebook is planning also to demand netbook manufacturers who sells computers with too small screens.
Facebook can’t guarantee to its clients they requested ads will be displayed, but this will be fixed in next Facebook redesign: you will have to go to one of their offices to post something in your wall, and you will have to see some ads and explain what you see to its lawyers to make clients happy.
– Yes, this is like proof by contradiction in maths.
Facebook is on the way out, you watch and see. They are way out of touch with every day players who makes the game. You keep up the good work M8 but, you hide and watch, Mafia Wars by Zynga will some day pull out and be done with Facebook someday. This game is bigger than Facebook realizes and if they can’t see that well they are silly school boys.
How does keep the home page on Recent News Feed affect FB or their lawyers? I’m not trying to be a smart a** – I really don’t understand how that makes a difference to them. I’m not switching until the version I’m using stops working…
thanks. I actually use no part but the auto expander, and that not all the time. My blind friend NEEDS the auto expanding part as otherwise she can’t get the farmville posts. Her reading program does not ’see’ the link to expand similar posts that is on Facebook. The only reason I came hunting for something like this was for her. Facebook would not respond to any of our pleas to help her.
no ad blocking? :(
I’ve moved to Ad Muncher which seems to work perfectly for now.
I never used this script as I have used other ones I will not advertise here but I have been following the drama. While I understand that you do not want to face any legal trouble over this issue it is a shame that you have to bend to their will. Hopefully the scripts I am using don’t follow your lead. I really want one of the author’s to contact the EFF to duke it out with FB once and for all. Best of luck to you and all your followers but I feel that they will jump ship after your current version stops working.
NOOOOO *cries*
[...] take notice of things like ad block, and some take serious offense. Facebook went as far to send a C&D to a firefox extension that modifies facebook rendering, of course they are pretty evil at this point (I am thinking of deleting my account, but that is a [...]
expand similar posts doesn’t work since the update to 2.0.0
Boy, I already miss having FF remove those posts from my wall, but I understand why you had to change that. Hopefully everything will get worked out. Good luck and thank you for all you do. :)
Facebook should respect what we want to see on our pages, not the BS they force us to see.. They should worry more about peoples accounts being hacked and all you wall posts that you want to keep that are always disappearing… Facebook needs to stop telling people how to make them more $$ while offering nothing in return except a never ending format change that only serves their purposes, not anyone else’s..
I just wanted to say how thankful and happy I am for being able to still use FF and for you to be able to keep it as well. :)
I must agree- – that I do miss the “Remove Recent Activity” function. I don’t know why Facebook thinks it interferes with their rules etc..
Anyways, hope that the new and coming features you add on FF will be more useful as always and will be much better. You rock!!!!!
the best feature was expanding show similar posts please if at all possible would love that feature back understand about the ads they need to make money
please if you can leave the expand similar posts best feature for me
I am happy you were able to save this software… i am sick though that the ability to remove recent activity with the filter was removed… Having done research, articles and security violation papers based all on the Recent Activity FB is forcing us to have that so many are clueless about is really scary.
Had I known, I would not have installed this new updated version and kept the old on my computer for as long as I could….
Greasemonkey is an interesting firefox addon that runs javascript scripts. If you search userscripts.org for Remove Recent Activity, there are two scripts of about four results that are intended to remove the recent activity. The button version works great. I haven’t tried the automatic script.
Shoot! How can i revert it back to my previous FF?!!!
I loaded FF because I assist on a lot of jobs, and since FB no longer allows me to block posting “likes”, removing hundreds of them manually is a pain in the butt. If FF can’t do this anymore, there is no point to my using it. I stupidly loaded the update, not realizing this feature was removed.
how about you do this…
facebook USED to allow you to filter what is posted to your wall. For instance, if I don’t want all my friends knowing that I wrote on the wall for the group “people who are secretly gay”, I could tell facebook to never put my posts in my news filter. That functionality is now null and void, and all my recent activity is broadcast for all to see.
So about about you make a TRUE feed FILTER and not a feed WASHER and allow us to fine-tune what recent activity posts get deleted??? I am sure facebook would not object! AND it would allow us to have control back that facebook took away from us!
plus… you could always just make the source code open source and let everyone else take the fall for it. feed filter would be unstoppable then
Good that you’re back up and running, but the only reason I installed the app is so that I could use the “expand show similar posts” feature, which was a colossal pain.
So I think I need to be removing the app too :(
That sucks! The most important feature of ff was to remove the recent activity. Such a pain in the azzzz deleting one at a time! Aaaaaaaaaargh!
So basically you had to remove the features that everybody likes the best.
Gee thanks facebook!! If you’d quit screwing everthing up then good programs like these wouldn’t be necessary!!
oh come on we need the “EXPAND SIMILAR POST” fb isnt making it easy for playing the games….i wonder how long it will take before the people who plays games get tired of facebook
the only reason i had the filter because it hid ads and removed the recent activity from my profile and to these ends i have a comment each:
ADS – Radio and television stations play ads their advertisers paid for but people change the channel or leave the room when they’re on and the business still pays for them. Most of the ads are redundant, worthless, misleading, or just plain dumb to begin with (since every damn dating site on the web has bought some and uses the most misleading pictures in their ads anyway {we all know the girls on there don’t actually look like that…}).
ACTIVITY – It’s no different having you do it or me do it … i still delete all “Recent Activity” because i don’t like it and i don’t feel it’s anyone’s business that i posted on a wall or picture (except the person i posted to). The only difference is hassle … it’s just more of a hassle for me to do it manually, but that doesn’t stop it.
Facebook has moved too far from what it was at inception anyway and i believe it should go back (but it never will) to what it was when it was ONLY for colleges and universities. So, basically, Mark f’d up … a) stealing his roommates idea and program and b) releasing it to the general stalker public!
They don’t have a leg to stand on. This is like receiving a TV Broadcast and I mute the commercials. My right to do this with my browser. I think the infringed on your first amendment rights.
Where can I get the old version?
I don’t see the problem with having our “EXPAND SIMILAR POST” back! It makes playing our games much easier! Getting rid of it just makes the games harder once again :o( . That just isn’t right at all, it’s plain stupid!
Your product is useless now. I will be uninstalling it.
There is a geasemonkey script that do the same thing. So i don’t see why you have to remove the “Remove recent activity” function. Perhaps you can incorporate this script into your apps.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/67751
How do I install the old version FF
Is there a way to reinstall or revert back to an older version, please please please? Facebook, if you happen to take a look at this stuff, its a crying shame that you’re attempting to push your weight around. As a client who was beginning to consider some ads on FB targeted to a younger crowd….you pulling all these stupid changes and pushing your weight around makes me realize you’re not any better than any other corporation. Boo hiss to you.
Thanks for making this plugin great while you could. Seriously, please let me know if there’s a way to revert back to the older version?
Unfortunately, I have no use for this now that all the features have been stripped. Oh well.
I agree with Joe, unfortunately I now have no use for this now. I understand that Facebook does not care about it’s users, but, only the bottom line!!! I also understand your predicament, and will not begrudge you for doing what you have to do. It was good while it lasted!!! I truly can’t wait for Zynga to pull away from Facebook, and see how many users they lose because of their crap!!!!
My feed filter stopped working, it still says show similar posts and how many there are.I installed the latest version and tried everything and it just won’t work.
The only reason I am keeping this now is for the filtering aspect of only showing the apps I want shown, soo much easier and faster than FB’s version and much easier to add an app back.
I updated not knowing that soo much was removed, I REALLY wish I could get the old version back :(
Russell, love your add-on, but w/o the Remove Recent Activity feature, I don’t have any use for it. I’m not a lawyer (thank god), which allows me to saw this: what the FB C&D is asking of you isn’t enforceable, much less legal. What I do on my computer is my business, and the manual task of clicking remove is no different server load than automating it. If FB is worried about ads, they’d go after AdBlock, but they know those guys would laugh them out of the building.
I don’t approve of FB cyberbullying. These tactics reek of MIAA. Look how well that worked out for them.
Keep your Home page on the “Most Recent” News Feed was the only reason i installed FF in the first place :(
“Remove recent activity posts from your wall” & “keep your home page on “most recent” news feed” were the only thing that I loved.
What a crock. You guys are making facebook more customized and user friendly. SO what’s wrong with that?
I sure hope you can do something about the similar post thing, it’s driving me BATTY~! ‘
I have it on my desktop, not the laptop…boy do I miss it here!
Thanks Russell for a wonderful add-on which made FB bearable. It seems that they are the only ones who are allowed to infringe on people’s rights with their constant changing of the privacy settings.
There are a gazillion scripts for facebook that do more “harm” to facebook than feed filter ever did.
Well, I made it all the way to today before 1.4.5 stopped working… I was determined to use it for as long as I could! Off to download the newest version and get used to the changes :(
THE COMBINE SIMILAR POSTS THING HAS RUINED FACEBOOK AND GAME PLAYING ON THE SITE. THAT WAS WHY I LOVED FF – THE NEW VERSION WITHOUT THIS FACILITY IS REALLY SECOND BEST BUT YET AGAIN FB HAS BULLIED SOMEONE INTO DOING SOMETHING THAT FB USERS JUST DO NOT WANT. TRUTH IS I HATE HATE HATE FB AND IF ZYNGA COULD GET AWAY FROM IT I WOULD GO AND NEVER DARKEN FB’S DOORSTEP AGAIN!