Dislike.

March 10, 2011 4:49 AM

Occasionally, when I view a website, a post is automatically generated on my Facebook profile: "Ziggy500 likes [this post] on [this website]". Even though I haven't clicked the "like on Facebook" button on that post. Is this supposed to happen?

I don't want all my Facebook friends to know what websites I'm viewing all the time!!

I can't remember which websites in particular this has occurred with. One was a recipe website, the other was a random blog post.

I've just deleted the posts as soon as they came to my attention, but I'd appreciate if there was any way to prevent this happening at all.

posted by Ziggy500 to Technology (10 answers total)

Best answer: Use Adblock to block the Facebook from your computer anytime you are on any site other than F.acebook. Add this code as a filter rule.

||facebook.*$domain=~facebook.com|~127.0.0.1

Facebook will work fine, and you shouldn't even see the Like button anymore on other sites. Signing into other sites with Facebook still seems to work, not that I would recommend that anybody actually do that.
posted by COD at 5:15 AM on March 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

Best answer: I use RequestPolicy for Firefox. It gives you fine control over cross-site requests and will remember your settings.

Though if it is just Facebook you want to block then the Adblock settings above will work fine.
posted by antiwiggle at 5:25 AM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The suggestions above about how to stop this are right on but it is worth clarifying that no, this is not supposed to happen. The owners of those websites are engaging a bit a unethical trickery using a cross-site scripting technique to make facebook think you clicked the like button. Such practices are almost certainly against Facebook's terms of service. If you don't want to install Request Policy or Adblock you can just always sign yourself out of facebook when you aren't actively using it.
posted by ChrisHartley at 5:52 AM on March 10, 2011

That's not supposed to happen, no. Is it possible you're accidentally clicking on "like" without realizing it? Otherwise, what Chris said.
posted by J. Wilson at 6:03 AM on March 10, 2011

If this happens on every site with a Facebook Like button, something is wrong on your computer (virus?).

If this happens only on certain sites, then they are doing some fishy stuff to fool FB you clicked the Like button. Stay away from them or use the blockers recommended before.
posted by jgwong at 6:08 AM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks very much for the helpful answers!
posted by Ziggy500 at 6:25 AM on March 10, 2011

I got tired of this crap and started using facebook in one browser and all other sites in another browser.
posted by advicepig at 7:35 AM on March 10, 2011

Best answer: if you are using chrome then there is the facebook disconnect plugin, or more generally disconnect.
posted by paradroid at 7:45 AM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, and if you are truly lazy (like me) you can set up Chrome to open in Incognito Mode by default, on a Windows XP machine anyway. Create a shortcut to Chrome, and right click to choose Properties. Under the Shortcut tab, you will see a field for Target which points to the application. At the very end of all that (after "...\chrome.exe", type a space and then" -incognio". So it looks something like:

"C:\....\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" -incognito

Then, when you click on that shortcut, it will open in Incognito mode automatically.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 9:43 AM on March 22, 2011

Ack -- my comment above was meant for a different post on a similar topic that linked here!
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 9:50 AM on March 22, 2011