I do not use Facebook much and I check my news feed very seldom. Giving up completely on my Facebook account is difficult, because a lot of friends and connections use Facebook (and often only Facebook!) to send messages, share photos and even to send out event invites.
Here is my struggle: every time I would open Facebook to reply to a message or look someone up, I would get distracted by the news feed. I try to stay focused, but the Facebook team is working hard to make it difficult!
So I wrote a very simple Chrome Extension this morning. It hides your news feed as soon you open Facebook. You can open your feed back up by clicking the “Show Facebook Feed” button.
I have to admit I had not looked into other options before starting to code, I did it for the challenge sake (I had never written a Chrome Extension before). There are a few other excellent plug-ins on the store already, but surprisingly mine seems to be the only with a button to show the feed without disabling the plugin.
Click here to get the extension on the Chrome Webstore
Updates:
- Update Jan. 2, 2015 (v1.4): The extension now hides the “Trending” and “Suggested Groups” side bars too!
- Update Dec. 30, 2014 (v1.3): Fixed minor bug that made Facebook continuously show the loading logo.
