Disable Facebook applications

Facebook recently launched their application API interface, and many of my friends have added apps to their profiles. It’s a great idea in theory but the majority of applications currently available on the site are useless and unsightly. I haven’t found a single useful application except for the official ones provided by the Facebook development team. So, I decided that I’m going to block third party applications and all the other goofy stuff on the site. I managed to accomplish this with a custom userContent.css file:

/* facebook application clean up
----------------------------------------------- */
a:link[href*="apps.facebook.com"],
a:link[href*="slide.com"],
a:link[href*="poke.php?id="],
#box_2386512837,
div.ad_capsule,
div.app_install_story,
div.extra_media,
div.platform,
div[id*="box_app_"] {
    display: none !important;
}

July 28, 2008

The upcoming redesign moves application cruft to a separate page, so the blocking code posted above is no longer really necessary. However, Facebook now uses social ads all over the site, which can be easily blocked with this code:

/* facebook ad clean up
----------------------------------------------- */
div.adcolumn, div.social_ad, div.sponsor {
    display: none !important;
}