Yet another small apps developer is feeling the pinch from a big company, this time from Facebook.
Fluff-Busting Purity, a Greasemonkey script that removes annoying notifications from Facebook apps like Farmville, Mafia Wars and the like from users news feeds, is under attack from Facebook for undisclosed reasons. The app is a browser plugin, which means Facebook should not have control over it. After all, if you have Adblocker Plus installed, banner ad companies shouldn’t be able to demand that you uninstall it.
These actions are confusing, heavy-handed and absolutely absurd.
Facebook could rightly be concerned with keeping its core user experience intact. However, this app actually does more to preserve the core user experience than it does to change it. Since third-party apps have started to irritate users to no end (why should I care what someone I barely know is doing in Farmville), this app is a welcome change to what is rapidly becoming an annoying user experience.
Facebook’s ostensible reason for repeatedly threatening to take the developer’s site down and deleting the fan page for this app twice is a trademark infringement. The app’s original name was Facebook Purity, which makes facebook’s initial displeasure here totally understandable. However, the app’s name has changed to resolve that. Last time I checked, Facebook didn’t own patents on the letters F and B.
This is becoming a disconcerting trend. It’s not entirely impossible to understand why companies like Apple and Facebook deny applications that run on their closed systems. However, once they start trying to control users’ browsers, they’ve simply gone too far.
I completely agree.
Especially over the points regarding notifications. The amount of Farmville and Mafia Wars notifications I get on a daily basis is really starting to p*ss me off.
It's got to the point where I have actually deleted some of my friends JUST so I don't get these damn notifications. Im having the same problem with Twitter.
Why should i HAVE to get direct messages?? Why cant companies like FB and Twitter give me the option to not have these types of features on my account?
You could also simply block app-specific notifications. I've blocked all games so my friends can play them all they want. I'm not bothered or aware any more.
I wasn't aware this was possible. How did you do that, please?
Hover to the right of the status and “hide” will appear. Then you cal
select to hide the users update or simply the application.
Skickat från min iPhone
26 mar 2010 kl. 16.28 skrev “Disqus” <
>:
I didn't know this script existed. But I've added it now that I do know.