If you're a fan of Facebook but not a fan of some of the changes Facebook's implemented lately, there's an app out there made just for you. Facebook has taken something wonderful, that millions of people use every day to communicate with friends, family and long-lost acquaintances and changed it in ways that sometimes make it less fun and more difficult to use.
That's where BetterFacebook comes in. BetterFacebook will work on most major browsers and is easy to implement and install. Created by Matt Kruse, out of his annoyance about what Facebook couldn't do, it has quickly turned into a tool that makes the Facebook experience quicker and more enjoyable.
One of the best features are the tabs. If you play Facebook games then you'll find this feature to be a must have. All your game posts, along with other apps that you use, will be displayed in different tabs. This makes finding posts from your favorite games quicker. No more searching through all of your posts to find the ones you're looking for.
Another top feature is the ability to remove posts that you've already read so you don't have to see them anymore. Or, you can remove the posts temporarily until a comment is posted on it. This way you can see all comments that are posted to posts that you like.
Other cool features include:
- Hide "Top Stories." This will allow you to hide the top section of Facebook where "Top Stories" are being shown. All your posts will be only in chronological order from now on.
- Remove "Recent Activity" posts. If all you want are top stories then you can choose to remove the "Recent Activity" posts from Facebook instead of the "Top Stories" posts.
- Get unfriend notifications - In the right column will be a small section that will let you know whenever someone unfriends you.
- Change the font size. Letters too small to read? Make them bigger. This can be done for comments as well as for posts.
- Disable the photo viewer. If you don't like the feature where all the person's photos pop up so you can scroll through them, you can turn this feature off.
- Show full images when hovering. Hover your mouse over a photo and see it in real size. This makes seeing most images easier as they will get bigger automatically.
- Lock the header bar so it scrolls. Keep the Facebook search bar and header at the top of the page at all times.
- Add themes. Make Facebook better looking and personalize it with the theme of your choosing.
That's not all. There are dozens of different options to choose from.
The downside is that every time Facebook makes changes, Matt, the programmer for BetterFacebook needs to change the programming to accommodate the changes. What this means to you is that sometimes the program may not work correctly right after a Facebook change. Never fear though- he updates it after the changes.
Linda Roeder - Linda has been an online writer since 1998. In addition to Suite101.com she has also written for About.com and CreativeWeblogging.com.
