You’ve probably seen the apps used by The Washington Post and Yahoo! on Facebook that require you to install something before you can read an article shared by one of your friends from their sites. Not only is it annoying, it just means that these publications want access to your personal information so it can learn about your reading habits.
I’d rather not let any publication store a list of articles that I’ve read, and I don’t want to install an app that publishes something as I’m reading it. That alone is a privacy invasion, so in seeking a way to bypass this annoying functionality, I found an add-on for Chrome that lets you skip the app installation phase altogether.
While the Facebook Unsocial Reader for Chrome isn’t the sexiest app in the world, it gets the job done if you’re annoyed by Social Reader apps like I am.
What the app does is copy the title of the article that was shared, skips the app installation screen, and takes you directly to a Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” search using the headline. The first search result is usually dead-on for the article that you wanted to read in the first place.
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
The app was developed by George Mike and I have to agree with his assessment below:
So there you go, if you want to skip over having to install an app to read an article, this is how to do it when you’re using the Chrome browser.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.