Even when you’re not on Facebook.com, Facebook’s tentacles are nearly impossible to avoid on today’s Internet: According to the social networking site’s public statistics, more than one million sites (including this one) have integrated with the Facebook platform, and more than 150 million people interact with Facebook on external websites each month.
For some Internet users, there’s nothing wrong with this state of affairs, and Facebook Connect may make their web surfing more convenient: However, for others, this is either an annoyance or a privacy concern. For this reason, Google engineer Brian Kennish — working in a personal capacity and not because anyone at the company asked him to — has written Facebook Disconnect, a Google Chrome extension that blocks all traffic from third-party sites to Facebook’s servers, though you can still browse Facebook.com just fine.
From the Facebook Disconnect extension page:
Facebook is notified whenever you visit one of the more than one million sites on the web that use Facebook Connect and has a history of leaking personally identifiable information to third parties.
Turn off the flow of your data to them!
Facebook Disconnect blocks all traffic from third-party sites to Facebook servers, yet you’ll still be able to access Facebook itself.
Notes:
1. I plan to add an optional omnibox icon to indicate blocking activity.
2. I’ve done a bunch of testing, but this extension was developed in a single day. If you find a bug, report it at http://code.google.com/p/byoogle/issues/list and I’ll fix it on the double.
3. Although I’m an engineer at Google on the Chromium project, the work here is entirely my own and in no way endorsed by Google.
People who don’t use Chrome should note that the capability to block Facebook plugins and scripts on third-party sites already exists on AdBlock Plus, although this requires some additional customization and setting up of filters.
(Facebook Disconnect via TechCrunch)
