FBP News Roundup : Multiple issues affecting FBP plus solutions

FB Purity News round up **All FBP users, please read this post as it has info relevant to all**

Clean up and Customize Facebook with the safe, free and top rated FB Purity browser add-on

FB Purity, the safe, free and top rated browser add-on lets you hide boring topics or spoilers from your newsfeed, with its keyword filtering technology : http://www.fbpurity.com

Issues affecting Firefox users

Firefox v43 was released on the 15th Dec, and that version of Firefox automatically disables any “un-signed” extensions including FBP.

**UPDATE** FBP v14.0 has now been released, and the Firefox extension has been signed, so please read the release notes for FBP v14 for important information regarding the latest release.

It is possible to enable/re-enable unsigned extensions to be installed in FF43 by changing a Firefox setting: Type about:config into the URL bar in Firefox, then in the Search box type xpinstall.signatures.required then double-click the preference, or right-click and select “Toggle”, to set it to false. This will allow you to install or re-enable any unsigned extensions.

Newsfeed filtering is still broken in Firefox since FF41 was released, so I still recommend installing Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) via https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/ It is a straightforward, quick and painless procedure, and replaces your existing FF installation, but retains your settings, bookmarks and extensions etc and means FBP’s newsfeed filtering functionality will work properly for you again. FF ESR is a secure and stable version of Firefox that receives regular security updates at the same time as the most recent FF release.

Another option is to switch to using the Greasemonkey version of FBP, which is available on the same  FBP download page as the FF extension. The GM script version of FBP has the exact same functionality as the extension version, but because the Greasemonkey extension itself has been signed, that means you can install any GM scripts you like, including FBP, so no need to alter any settings, or install different versions of Firefox.

Of course another option is to switch to another browser that FBP will run in, such as Chrome, Opera or Maxthon. In my own personal experience FBP functions much better in those browsers anyway.

New Facebook Advert Preferences Interface

Facebook have recently exposed its ad preferences interface which shows how Facebook stores ad topics that it thinks you might be interested in. Of course if you have FBP’s ad hiding function turned on, you won’t see the ads, but you might still be interested to see the list of Ad topics it thinks you are interested in, and may even want to delete them.

You can see the list of ad topics here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/edit/ You will be pleased to know that FBP now has functionality for cleaning out the list of ad topics from that page, as Facebook only allows you to delete them one at a time. FBP adds a button to that page, titled “Clear Ad Prefs with FBP” and clicking it will remove all the topics from the page. I recently fixed a bug with this, so you may need to reinstall FBP to get the button working properly so it clears all the preferences out without leaving any behind, in a single sweep.

Trending Topics appearing in Search box popup

“Trending Topics” have now started appearing as search suggestions in the Search popup box. FBP has an option under the “Top Nav Bar Options” heading to completely hide the “search box popup”, but I have now figured out some CSS code that just hides the Trending/Popular/Recent Searches from showing in the popup. To add the code, click the CSS tab link on the FBP options screen, then copy and paste the following code into the box, then click the “Save & Close” button.

/* hide search suggestions */
#facebar_typeahead_view_list._21c._2yob, #blueBarNAXAnchor div.injectedSearchSuggestion {display:none}

For more CSS customisation options, check out the FBP CSS Page

Bug in Hide “Liked Page” Filter

Another thing worth mentioning is the Hide “Liked Page” filter, under the “Link / Page Stories” heading on the FBP options screen. This filter has a bug which causes extra posts to be hidden than should be (they will have text filter match “like page” written under them). So if you are suffering from that problem, turn that option off, until i can figure out a fix for it.

Bug in Hide “Auto Tag Suggestions” option

This option is not working properly any more, since an FB code change, and its very hard to fix, so may not be back for a while, as I have lots of other more pressing issues to deal with right now.

The Hide “Your Memories” filter

Some people are noticing that some memories are getting past this filter. There is a solution: Go to the On This Day page, click the Preferences button, then click the “Edit” link in the people section and add your own name to the list of people whose posts will be filtered out.

New Facebook Popup Notifications in the Bottom Right Corner

One last thing, I keep getting people saying FBP’s Hide “Popup Notifications” option is no longer blocking facebook’s popup notifications, in fact fbp is still blocking the popup notifications that appear at the bottom left side of facebook pages, but it cannot block the facebook notifications that appear at the bottom right, and show up whether or not you actually have Facebook open at the time. These are a different type of notification and you can actually stop them in either Facebook’s own notification settings and / or the browser’s settings. The  image below explains how to block the right hand side popups from showing up in Google Chrome browser:

How to block Facebook's new browser popup notifications that appear at the bottom right of your browser window.

Click the padlock in the URL bar, then click the Notifications menu, and tick the “Always block on this site” option.

And the image below, shows you how to turn them off on Facebook’s own Notification Settings page:

Turn off Facebook's

How to turn off Facebook’s “Push” notifications, that pop up at the bottom right of your browser, whether or not you have Facebook open.

Hopefully this news is helpful to some of you,

Best regards,

Steve

Please remember if you have any problems or questions with or about FBP, to use the available help resources on this website, including the FBP User Guide, and FBP FAQ page  which includes a comprehensive Troubleshooting Guide

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6 Responses to FBP News Roundup : Multiple issues affecting FBP plus solutions

  1. D says:

    I Installed FB purity……..I think………what next?

    signed AN INTERNET ILLITERATE PERSON!

  2. Robin says:

    Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! What do you mean I can no longer use FBP with Firefox??? PLEASE get FBP signed somehow. Chrome is not an option for me — and I love that Firefox takes security so seriously. The work around suggested opens the box for ALL extensions and I’d rather not go there.

    I’ll just delete my FB account and never go back if FBP is disabled. I mean it. Absolutely.

    I mean….life, er FB, is not worth it without FBP….I can’t go on……

    • admin says:

      You can always use the GM script version of FBP, it has the exact same functionality as the extension version, and the bonus is it doesn’t need to be signed.

  3. Joe says:

    What do you mean by “double click the preference or right click select toggle and set it to false”?

    • admin says:

      if that method is too technical for you, a better bet is installing FF ESR, that will fix both issues (unsigned extension and newsfeed filtering) its very simple and straightforward, simply click the link above and install FF ESR, job done.

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