This news post is for those Facebook users who are tired of dealing with Facebook news apps and don’t mind using Google Chrome for Facebook. There is a Google Chrome extension that lets a user to bypass them and go straight to the article at its original source. This can solve a few seconds of a user, but at the same time quite a few frustrating moments.
Statically, millions of Facebook users already have embraced the Open Graph for reading and sharing news. Many big time techies do not appreciate the efforts utilized by Facebook engineers on Facebook Open Graph news apps. The reason for the same is that there are a number of problems in it. Finally, it seems there is a way out of it. May be not for everyone, but at least for the Google Chrome users, with the introduction of this extension.
The developer of this app is Brian Kennish, who also built Facebook Disconnect, and Nik Cubrilovic, who was the driving force behind getting Facebook to explain and change how it uses tracking cookies. They have named it frictionless and this extension helps users skip Facebook News, as it bypasses Facebook news apps and lets users to go read the article at the original source.
Interestingly, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari versions are works on a similar prospects. This was noted as the developers noted their codes on GitHub and have even welcomed anyone who wants to fork, port, and/or pull it. Here’s Frictionless’ official description:
Read articles on Facebook without being prompted to add apps.
Remember when you could click a link on Facebook then go to the destination page — not an app installer — afterwards?
Relive the glory days with Frictionless!
If one does not know much about Facebook News and its problems, here is a brief about it. Various publications have created Facebook Open Graph apps, including The Independent, The Guardian, Yahoo News, The Huffington Post, and The Washington Post. Once a Facebook user installs such an app, an update of every news read by a user can be seen in Ticker. That is not all, some of the more popular articles are featured at the top of the user’s News Feed, which shows that a few of user’s friends read them, in an attempt to further push news apps.
Here the problem starts. It annoys a user when the app behaves in an inconsistent manner. Some of them require an install, some of them allow you to hit cancel and still read the article, some of them load an alternate version of the article within Facebook, while others open the original website. Again, if one wants to read an article, the app asks for access to their profile data. That seems to frustrate users at times.
But frictionless makes things simple. No options, no customization, no buttons. Just click and read. It makes reading via Facebook News pleasure.
One can download this extension from the Chrome Web Store. However, this is just a first release for Google Chrome. One can expect many more updates to flow in, in the times to come. Other browser users can even expect the same in the coming future.