Wayne and Layne

Firefox AdBlock Plus rules to neuter Facebook connect

Tired of the anti-privacy features that Facebook keeps rolling out? Getting a little worried about third-party websites silently installing applications to access all your personal information? Well then quit facebook, already!

Just kidding, how would you ever stalk your friends, family, and random strangers you met a the bar if you quit facebook? As a stop-gap measure, you can use the AdBlock Plus extension for Firefox to eliminate most of the cross-site facebook interactions.

1. Install AdBlock Plus in your Firefox browser.

2. Save this text into a file on your Desktop:
[Adblock Plus 1.1]
||connect.facebook.net/
||facebook.com/connect/
||facebook.com/plugins/
||facebook.com/ajax/connect/
||facebook.com/connect.php/
||api.facebook.com/restserver.php
##img[src$="facebook_icon.png"]
||fbcdn.net/connect$domain=~facebook.com|~fbcdn.net|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com
||fbcdn.net/rsrc.php$domain=~facebook.com|~fbcdn.net|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com

3. Open up Firefox and the AdBlock Plus preferences. Click on “Filters” -> “Import Filters…” Select the file you just created.

4. When it asks, you probably want to say “Append” filter rules instead of replacing your current rules.

5. The new anti-facebook-connect rules should be displayed in the filter rule lists!

References:
BoingBoing Article Facebook: New ‘social’ features secretly install malware
Make Magazine Blog:How-to: Avoid ‘Facebook malware’