The Best Way to View Facebook

Entry before last I was talking about Facebook lite, and how with a few fixes on their side and a new Greasemonkey script, it could be ideal. Well, although bug fixes and other general fixes have not been released by Facebook as of this entry, a nice Greasemonkey script has been and so I've decided to re-post it here.

This script will completely remove the right column of Facebook lite, which will in turn remove the 'People You May Know' section and any advertisements. In case it hasn't sunk in yet, I'll draw attention to it: This means that when you visit Facebook lite you will be able to interact with Facebook with faster loading times, no bloat, no apps and no advertisements. This is the best way to interact with Facebook that I have found to date. There are Greasemonkey scripts that allow you to strip advertisements and apps out of Facebook proper but Facebook will still take ages to load and most the scripts I have found are a bit sloppy.

Those of you who know about Greasemonkey can skip this paragraph, while those who don't should continue reading. Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on that allows users to run scripts that (among other things) alter the way in which content is displayed in the browser. In order to use these scripts you need to install the add-on by visiting this Firefox page using the Firefox browser. Please be sure that you have the latest stable version of the browser installed. Once you install the add-on by clicking on the green button that reads "Add to Firefox," you will be prompted by a dialogue box to restart Firefox, which you should do.

Although there are ways to use Greasemonkey scripts in browsers like Safari (using GreaseKit), some scripts will not function properly, and unfortunately this script is one of them. For this script, to my knowledge thus far, you will need to run Firefox. I have alerted the author of the script but as it is not his concern that it doesn't work for unintended applications, I don't expect any changes to be made.

Head over to this page on userscripts and click the green install button. If GreaseMonkey is already enabled, you should be able to then click 'Install' again on the dialogue after a few seconds. If clicking this button instead takes you to a page with a bunch of code, make sure that you have Greasemonkey installed properly by checking your Add-ons in Firefox under 'Tools,' 'Add-Ons.' It's as easy as that. Now, when you head over to Facebook lite you shouldn't see any ads or the annoying 'People You May Know' frame. Although Facebook still needs to fix a lot of bugs in lite, this is as good as it gets for this dying service (perhaps I will explain later why, counter to all indication, I actually believe facebook is dying).

EDIT: There are few bugs that are showstoppers. I cannot imagine that these bugs could last more than a weak without being fixed by a company as big as Facebook though, so I stand by this being the best way to view Facebook.