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Disable Facebook Chat Seen Status - Chrome Extension
extension is open source, it just blocks a simple connection to http://www.facebook.com/ajax/mercury/change_read_status.php
- gamegoblin 13y agoIs the purpose of the "seen" message to encourage people to keep a conversation going (that they would otherwise have abandoned) out of guilt? If someone knows that their friend knows that they have read their message, I think that they are more likely to respond so that they don't seem like a bad friend. I guess the goal would be to get people to stay on the site longer.
- blablabla123 13y agoThe purpose of seen is IMHO to make FB messaging more reliable than other service like text msgs or E-Mail. Obviously there are many people that like to not give responses, including me sometimes. But I guess that shouldn't make you change that behaviour?
- prometheuspk 13y agoIt's seems very rude and arrogant to the other party in the conversation. On the other hand when the 'seen' thing wasn't happening the other party could at least think that you just haven't checked the message yet.
- aaronjb 13y agoNice, gonna try it now. I hate that damn thing, and was dismayed when I couldn't disable it in Facebook's settings. Now if only I could do the same for the app.
- Kartificial 13y agoFacebook should implement a setting where you can disable this feature, so others cannot see if you have read their message, but at the same time this info is hidden for you as well.
- swang 13y agoCurious why it needs access to all your websites? I thought you can do wildcards in Chrome? Edit: OK looked over the Chrome .crx file. Apparently it does the filtering internally inside the script instead of declaring it in the manifest (or wherever Chrome puts those settings now).
- beaumartinez 13y agoThe creator tries to pass themselves off as Facebook as well—"By FB", which links to www.facebook.com. Very uncool.
- ladino 13y agoi just reviewed the source code and it only blocks a simple connection to /ajax/messaging/typ.php, /ajax/mercury/mark_seen.php, and /ajax/mercury/change_read_status.php. good catch to reduce permissions.
- thejosh 13y agoOh, it probably will get an update where it can access anything after a lot of users have installed it.
- linux_devil 13y agoNot a Facebook addict , don't mind such small settings.
- garethadams 13y agoThe parent comment isn't relevant to me
- deanclatworthy 13y agoOP: I'd advise you to be careful producing extensions which adjust facebook in any way. The author of one of the most popular facebook extensions had his account revoked as it's strictly against Facebook's ToS to adjust the page or experience in any way: http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/12/19/facebook-bans-creator-of-fb-purity-a-browser-add-on-that-lets-users-customize-the-site/ http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/12/19/facebook-bans-crea...
- ladino 13y agoextension is open source, it just blocks a simple connection to http://www.facebook.com/ajax/mercury/change_read_status.php http://www.facebook.com/ajax/mercury/change_read_status.php
- adventured 13y agoUnfortunately Facebook won't care about any of that in their determination over whether to try to punish the op.
- ladino 13y agoare you from Facebook ;)
- psutor 13y agoThanks for this, I just added a rule to block that in my AdBlock on FF.
- prometheuspk 13y agoJust added this address to my AdBlock list. The only thing left to find out is, when will they change this implementation... unexpectedly.
- cliveowen 13y agoI wouldn't mind it if it actually worked as expected. I often go through the tabs including that of facebook and people think I read the messages but decided not to respond. I also really hate the blink (name) wrote a message on the tab name. Facebook should get its shit together.
- cliveowen 13y agoI just realized that what I wrote sounds like it has been written by a particularly slow-witted toddler. What I was trying to say is that I found very distracting and annoying the whole "Johnny messaged you" blinking thing while I'm reading something. Isn't it obvious that if I wanted to read someone's messages I would be ON Facebook instead of reading another tab?
- antr 13y agoRegarding Facebook Chat: Does anyone know why I need to "Turn Off Chat" every time I login to Facebook. It is clearly designed to login automatically, Facebook doesn't respect the user's wishes to remain "offline". It keeps logging in, as if they think my FB web engagement is going to increase for being available to chat. As a result I use FB less. Anybody knows why FB is becoming so unusable?
- vilqqu 13y agoI don't know why that is, but you can get around it by creating an empty list of friends and adding it to the 'Turn on chat for only some friends...' section of the advanced chat settings.
- ladino 13y agolooks like a FB bug: http://www.facebook.com/help/326603310765065 http://www.facebook.com/help/326603310765065
- sidmkp96 13y agoThat means u r signed in from some other place, like your Smartphone, or some IM client like Trillian etc, or u have Facebook Messenger installed on ur phone, due to which u r always online when u sign-in.
- antr 13y agoI thought about this, but I don't have any FB app on my mobile, nor use an IM client (except HipChat for work).
- SimHacker 13y agoProbably just some NSA agent logged into your account.
- sidmkp96 13y agoDid u use a IM Client like IMO by any chance? Because with IMO, even if u remove it (while ur status was online from IMO client), u r still signed into Facebuk. I eventually had to download it again, sign-in, changed my status to offline. And since then, I haven't faced any issue.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rish404 13y agoCurious what exactly includes the "seen" feature? If I have 30 tabs opened in my browser, facebook being one of them, does that mean every message would be marked as "seen" even though I haven't visited that tab for hours? How does it work on mobile? Do push notifications also count in the "seen" since I can see and read the message on the lock screen itself.
- adventured 13y agoI believe it means it would never get marked as seen to the user on the other end of the chat. That is, they would never know that you saw the chat text. I assume it's interrupting or misleading whatever Facebook is using (focus? mouse movement?) to determine whether you've seen the text in the chat box.
- mike-cardwell 13y agoAnyone know of a Firefox equivalent?
- matiasb 13y agoIt would be nice!
- bboyan 13y agoIt adds an http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/webRequest.html#event-onBeforeRequest http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/webRequest.html#event... handler that prevents requests to /ajax/messaging/typ.php, /ajax/mercury/mark_seen.php, and /ajax/mercury/change_read_status.php. Copy-pasta from some YouTube ad block extension.
- madsravn 13y agoWhy? Does it matter whether or not people can see if you have read their message? I will answer your question when I have time, and if you're on my friends list I guess you should know me well enough to know that.
- mzf 13y agoMuch more annoying feature is the sidebar, where all my contacts can see my real time activity. Damn I don't like it at all.
- nakedrobot2 13y agohttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14314213/no-thanks.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14314213/no-thanks.jpg "access your data on all websites" "access your tabs and browsing activity" NO THANK YOU!
- timdiggerm 13y agoYes that is how extensions work
- hclose 13y agoAdded to firewall ruleset. Thank you! :)
- gwu78 13y agoNo need for a Chrome extension. Just block the /ajax/mercury/mark_seen.php, change_read_status.php and /ajax/messaging/typ.php URL's via your firewall ruleset. The utility of a kernel space firewall is not limited to Facebook privacy. It's very easy to stop mobile apps from "phoning home" using such a firewall. Could users find this desirable? Maybe there's a market for a pre-configured firewall you can carry in your pocket? Think small PCB (say, RaspberryPi or something that could fit in an Altoids tin) as a headless wifi gateway/firewall for your branded, infinitely functional, graphical mobile device. It might sit between the user's mobile device and the wifi access point and redirect certain IP addresses (e.g., those for www.facebook.com) to a proxy listening on localhost. The proxy can perform Layer 7 filtering. tcpdump/ngrep running on the PCB could show the user what apps are phoning home. The user could then choose to add them to the firewall. Internet service subscribers with modest technical know-how routinely configure and run wifi routers in their homes. Or someone does the config and setup for them. Running a similar "router" in your pocket is not unfathomable. Does privacy have value?