Filed under: Business, Internet, Security, Social Software
How to block Facebook Beacon
Look, we're as happy as anyone that Facebook has figured out how to start making money through advertising. But we're also as freaked out as anyone that one way the company will do this is by tracking your web surfing behavior and add it to your profile. Fortunately Nate Weiner figured out an extraordinarily simple solution (for Firefox users). Just install the BlockSite Firefox add-on and block Facebook Beacon.
Weiner was playing an online game the other day when he noticed a pop up window telling him that the web site was going to share his information with his Facebook profile. He had an option to say "no thanks," but like many people, Weiner figured he'd rather not get the message in the first place. So he found the offending requests were sent to "http://www.facebook.com/beacon/beacon.js.php." So you could either add that URL to your BlockSite blacklist, or better yet, add "http://www.facebook.com/beacon/*" to block any requests to the entire Beacon folder.
And now you have your privacy back. For now.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
aurali said 8:38AM on 1-31-2008
hello
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Chrispy said 2:20PM on 11-09-2007
Love it! less spam from them telling what i like now, hopefully.
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Heathen Dan said 5:50PM on 11-09-2007
In Opera you don't need to download 3rd-party addons for that same functionality.
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LinuxUser said 2:57PM on 12-30-2007
Only problem with Opera is that they don't have 64 bit ports for Linux. (any?) Plus, what's the point in having a facebook? Do I really want to know that "John has just got up from his computer to take a crap."?
Big John said 7:05PM on 11-09-2007
Or, Heathen Dan, instead of snarking you could provide people with instructions on how to accomplish the same thing in Opera.
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Chris said 8:10AM on 11-13-2007
Add http://ads.*.facebook.com to your black list. This will block the flash sidebar adds, and the adds in the sponsored posts.
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Natte said 3:17PM on 11-14-2007
FYI, you are missing a w in the 'http://ww.facebook.com/beacon/*' part of your post.
Also, you should actually use: http://*facebook.com/beacon/* to block both www and non-www.
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cdupree said 11:05AM on 11-23-2007
Opera users: select Tools->Advanced->Blocked Content, and enter the URL. That's it.
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no name said 9:59PM on 11-30-2007
how much do you pay to use facebook?
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Lola said 8:40AM on 12-04-2007
What about Safari?
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