back to article Mozilla's Social add-on MERGES Facebook with Firefox

Do people say you spend too much time on Facebook? Do you actually worry that viewing other websites might be cutting into your Facebook time? Then the Mozilla Foundation has the Firefox add-on for you. Facebook Messenger for Firefox integrates the social network's controls directly into the browser's user interface, making it …

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  1. banjomike
    WTF?

    To try it out, you must first make sure ...

    Why the hell would I want to try it out? My first reaction is "how not to activate it in the first place" or "can I turn it off".

    1. Chet Mannly

      Re: To try it out, you must first make sure ...

      +1 I trust there will be an off switch for this somewhere...

      I wonder how much cash firefox is getting from facebook for keeping all its customers logged into FB allowing FB to track your every online move - that kind of information is valuable...

    2. lmorchard
      Facepalm

      Re: To try it out, you must first make sure ...

      So... don't turn it on. It doesn't come enabled out of the box.

    3. Irongut

      Re: To try it out, you must first make sure ...

      I want to do more than turn it off, I want to remove the code for this brain dead "feature" and preferably the devs responsible from the planet.

      It's high time someone forked Firefox and removed all the useless bloat, starting with this crap.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Chavdar Ivanov

    Funny thing...

    If there were one, I wouldn't mind trying something similar from ElReg... I wouldn't want reading other sites cutting into my ElReg time either!

    1. lmorchard

      Re: Funny thing...

      That's the thing: This is a Social API built into Firefox, and Facebook is just the first site to use it. You can activate it for other sites if / when they support it - or never turn it on for any site ever.

  3. h3

    Seamonkey .....

    Firefox started out by removing the bloat from the old Mozilla suite.

    But now it is at the point where Seamonkey is less bloated than Firefox.

    So I think sooner or later I will be switching to Seamonkey.

    (No problem with plugin versions and silly release schedules that add nothing).

  4. ShadowedOne
    Joke

    Hmm..

    FireFace? FaceFox? FoxBook?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmm..

      FaceBox?

      :P

    2. Z-Eden
      Unhappy

      Re: Hmm..

      More like facepox...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How terribly sad.

  6. Ole Juul

    every parasite needs a host

    0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com

  7. SteveCarr

    Old idea - Rockmelt has been doing it for ages

    Rockmelt is based on top of Chrome, has pretty full Facebook integration, and works well. It's currently a bit behind the curve on Windows due to the small developer team working on other platforms, but hopefully will catch back up soon.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    They have strayed from the original Firefox

    I remember the pre-Firefox days using Mozilla on Linux. It was slow for certain things but it worked. Problem was, it tried to do too much. Some people decided they wanted to do a lean and mean browser-only and started the project that became Firefox. It was awesome.

    Now some people on the project need to break away and start something lean and mean once again...

  9. Da Weezil
    Mushroom

    Bye bye firefox

    Thats enough. Firefox binned - Seamonkey installed for evaluation - If the rumours about Opera come true then thats next to go. I dont want the social media B/S or the bloat to support it - especially after the Google data slurp - which proved how untrustworthy these campanies are (and how ineffective and weak the UK ICO really is) I am even more paranoid about these data whores.

    No arsefaceplace anywhere near my machines thank you.

    1. Patrick Finch

      Re: Bye bye firefox

      [I work for Mozilla]

      It's an API that you integrates social services with the browser if the user enables them. In the case of Facebook, it's like having a Facebook tab open. From your post, I gather the feature is not very appealing to you.

      I humbly suggest you try Firefox 17, and if you have ideas for how you wish to control your experience online further, we are very keen to understand and implement them.

      I am not sure if this will help what you describe as your paranoia about "data whores", but the Collusion project (http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/collusion/ ) may be of interest to you.

      1. Neil 51

        Re: Bye bye firefox

        Shush Patrick, don't get in the way of a rant. Facebook was mentioned in an article so it's customary for people in the comment section to try and out-Alpha-Nerd each other by loudly saying how "I DON'T USE FARCEBOOK" (other "hilarious" substitutions are available)

        Just be glad he didn't start ranting about how he meets people in real life instead.

        http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2670

      2. Gene Cash Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Bye bye firefox

        My problem is "why aren't the FF devs doing something useful like fixing important bugs instead of this useless crap?"

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Bye bye firefox

        Patrick,

        First thing: is this an add-on, as in something you download separately if you wanted to, or an integral part of the browser? I mean, I can't have a fucking download bar unless I install some dodgy add-on, but a Farcebook thing that's a must-have in the core? I, like I suspect many other Firefox users don't even have a Farcebook account!!!

        Second: "...if you have ideas for how you wish to control your experience online further, we are very keen to understand and implement them."

        No, sorry, you are not. Mozilla has become worse than Wikipedia for politicking, bureaucracy, power games, and general procrastination. I gave up trying to contribute bug reports a long time ago because I can't really be arsed to put up with the irritation. E.g., let us talk about getting security certificates bundled into Mozilla... just how the fuck does that work? RandomInternetBusinessFromNowhereistan.com can have three different CA certs, yet I know of one major Western European country whose government had been fighting for years (yes, YEARS) your silly non-procedures and, last I checked, they still hadn't managed to get their certificates bundled with Firefox (whereas Microsoft and Opera have had them for years). And that's just one example.

        Seriously, as a FOSS project Firefox has become a fucking embarrassment.

        God I needed to say that!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Buttons...

    So if the button to go to Facebook is 'F', does that mean there is an 'F Off'?

  11. Z-Eden
    Big Brother

    Wonder how much tracking this plug in does? I wouldn't put it past facebook to insert some nefarious monitoring tool to see which websites you visit. Before you know it, a facebook page has been created for you listing your favourite websites, including sites listed under the "Gentleman's Downloads" category!

  12. batfastad

    API?

    I assume this will be a Firefox only API?

    I've not seen anything on the W3C site about it. So it's probably nothing to worry about and will be gone soon enough, probably by Firefox 36 due to be released early next year.

    Another thing, Thunderbird's just updated to v17 and the Windows title bar has disappeared, giving me 20 extra pixels of screen back. Only to be replaced by massive tabs with rounded corners.

  13. pip25
    Facepalm

    Why isn't this an add-on??

    I still have to install a separate add-on to make Firefox's history handling at least moderately sane. They can't add a few more options to Firefox regarding that, but Facebook Messenger is a must have? Are they completely off their meds now?

    1. batfastad

      Re: Why isn't this an add-on??

      I agree! It seems that more and more features are being built in to FF rather than being addons. Weave/sync is another example. For me the Firefox UI was pretty much perfect by v3. Any UI tweaks since then have not been necessary IMO. The speed improvements since then are much appreciated though!

      What history addon do you use? An addon project I've been wanting to start for years is to be able to restrict history searches by day/date range.

      1. pip25
        Meh

        Re: Why isn't this an add-on??

        It's called "Expire history by days", and it does just that. Way back in the Stone Age, err I mean Firefox 2 or maybe 3, this was actually part of the core functionality. Then they got a "better" idea.... *sigh*

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why isn't this an add-on??

      Not to mention that fucking download progress bar.

    3. Chet Mannly

      Re: Why isn't this an add-on??

      "I still have to install a separate add-on to make Firefox's history handling at least moderately sane."

      You mean you are destroying all that juicy data before Facebook can slurp it all?

      Shame on you - Zuckerberg needs a new ferrari LOL

      On a serious note though - firefox was the browser I used to avoid all this cr@p - noscript, adblock etc let me take control of all the tracking and advertising BS out there.

      Now even MS is showing firefox how to turn "do not track" on by default, and firefox is including APIs specifically to allow facebook to track your every move - what "donations" have firefox been getting in exchange for allowing access to our personal data?

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