4 ms·

Is there anything wrong with linking to the share pages directly to avoid the JavaScript buttons altogether? e.g. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sha

Is there anything wrong with linking to the share pages directly to avoid the JavaScript buttons altogether? e.g. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fex... Twitter: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=My+tweet+http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=My+tweet+http%3A%2F%2F... Google+: https://plus.google.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com https://plus.google.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=http://example.com http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=http:...

JoshTriplett 14y ago
Technically, according to the ToS of Facebook and Twitter at least, you can't use their share button icons unless you use their unmodified sharing script code. In practice, nobody cares, and lots of sites link directly to those share links.
- spdy 14y ago
  This got some media attention in germany when heise.de first put this out. Facebook immediately threatend them to terminate their app-id / violating tos etc. But later on they backpaddled and made an offical statement that you are allowed to use an modified like button that does not resemble the orginal like button (icon).
bsimpson 14y ago
I worked at an ad company that was very keen on social sharing. Having played with both the bookmarklet-style links you've cited as well as the official share buttons, I've found the official buttons are better supported. I feel like one day, Facebook is just going to deprecate sharer.php and make everyone use the Like button. Tracking aside, the Like button has a much better UX, whereas sharer.php has been barely maintained in spite of all the changes to Facebook proper in the last few years. I don't think you can even suggest a link title anymore. Anecdotally, users seem to trust native button more. If it looks like you made your own PNG and linked it to Facebook, they can't trust that you aren't going to try to do something shady to their Facebook account (or open a popup). If you use Facebook's button, it's a familiar experience without providing the publisher's site the opportunity to play man-in-the-middle. User perception matters. Facebook's button seems to be perceived as more user-friendly than the unknown button on someone else's site, even if the unfamiliar button was designed to be less hostile than Like.
- wuest 14y ago
  > Facebook's button seems to be perceived as more user-friendly than the unknown button on someone else's site, even if the unfamiliar button was designed to be less hostile than Like. I expect that Schneier's blog is one of the best places to start reversing that common (and understandable) perception. Given the pervasive nature of fraudulent sites focusing on Facebook, one can't blame the users--but shifting their frame of mind from "fraud is bad!" to "tracking/other invasions of privacy are bad!" is overdue.
- lenazegher 14y ago
  One (big) benefit of running a custom solution with just links rather than the official buttons is that loading links is fast. I've been trying to find some social buttons that don't have a significant impact on load time. I think I might ask my business partner to write a wordpress plugin that loads custom links/buttons.

JoshTriplett 14y ago

Technically, according to the ToS of Facebook and Twitter at least, you can't use their share button icons unless you use their unmodified sharing script code. In practice, nobody cares, and lots of sites link directly to those share links.

spdy 14y ago
This got some media attention in germany when heise.de first put this out. Facebook immediately threatend them to terminate their app-id / violating tos etc. But later on they backpaddled and made an offical statement that you are allowed to use an modified like button that does not resemble the orginal like button (icon).

bsimpson 14y ago

I worked at an ad company that was very keen on social sharing. Having played with both the bookmarklet-style links you've cited as well as the official share buttons, I've found the official buttons are better supported. I feel like one day, Facebook is just going to deprecate sharer.php and make everyone use the Like button. Tracking aside, the Like button has a much better UX, whereas sharer.php has been barely maintained in spite of all the changes to Facebook proper in the last few years. I don't think you can even suggest a link title anymore. Anecdotally, users seem to trust native button more. If it looks like you made your own PNG and linked it to Facebook, they can't trust that you aren't going to try to do something shady to their Facebook account (or open a popup). If you use Facebook's button, it's a familiar experience without providing the publisher's site the opportunity to play man-in-the-middle. User perception matters. Facebook's button seems to be perceived as more user-friendly than the unknown button on someone else's site, even if the unfamiliar button was designed to be less hostile than Like.

wuest 14y ago
> Facebook's button seems to be perceived as more user-friendly than the unknown button on someone else's site, even if the unfamiliar button was designed to be less hostile than Like. I expect that Schneier's blog is one of the best places to start reversing that common (and understandable) perception. Given the pervasive nature of fraudulent sites focusing on Facebook, one can't blame the users--but shifting their frame of mind from "fraud is bad!" to "tracking/other invasions of privacy are bad!" is overdue.
lenazegher 14y ago
One (big) benefit of running a custom solution with just links rather than the official buttons is that loading links is fast. I've been trying to find some social buttons that don't have a significant impact on load time. I think I might ask my business partner to write a wordpress plugin that loads custom links/buttons.