Although it has some quirks such as some missing links, the new Facebook design works for me. One of the things I quite dig is the new homepage, showing me what’s going on in my friends circle. However, there’s a problem with that live-lifestream … some of the info contained (mainly those darn quizzes) is just irrelevant to me. Therefore I’ve knocked up a GreaseMonkey script which removes the quizzes from the Facebook homepage.
Installation is pretty straightforward:
- Install GreaseMonkey,
- Relaunch Firefox in case you haven’t after the install of GM,
- Install the script
From now on (until Facebook redesigns again that is) the quizzes (both current ones as future ones) won’t bother you anymore 
Update 2009.03.23
If you want to block that rather new “Pick your five”-thing, add the code below on line 38 of the GM_BRAMUS.facebook.homepage.noquiz file:
forbiden_strings.push("What are yours?");
Note: GM_BRAMUS.facebook.homepage.noquiz is inspired upon quiz stories remover which unfortunately did not work for me.
Bram.us is the technical/geeky weblog of Bram Van Damme (nicknamed Bramus!), a 28 year old geezer raised in Deinze and living in
Thanks for the tip. I’m not really a fan of the new design myself, but I’ve noticed that Facebook have given in to some of the user pressure and have reverted back some of the old features.
- John
Thanks. This made me using Firefox again.
Works great.
Thanks again.
forbiden_strings.push(“just took the”);
has to be added too. there were some quizes coming through
This isn’t working for me as of 4/10/09.
It’s simply deleting every single item in my feed after 1 second or so. My feed is now blank. I verified that toggling the script off returns my page to normal. I am also running the firefox extension “Boost for Facebook” too which recolors a few things and adds blowing pics up to full size on mouse-over. I wonder if that’s the culprit?
It’s not the boost script. I just disabled that, and am still seeing this issue.
Brandon,
I have uploaded an updated version that fixes this issue which got introduced ever since Facebook changed something in their HTML output.
Regards,
Bram.
Love this script! The spelling-error is a sad thing though… “forbidden” beats “forbiden”
Wish I could actually enjoy this script, but firefox seems a bit ill, crashes about twice a day. Chrome never does that
@Naan: That spelling error is a leftover from the original author’s code and left in the script due to laziness
That quizzes thing had pissed me off. Glad that that I found your blog I won’t be bother anymore by this useless quizzes stories. Thank you for this post!
Great script, some quizzes are still getting through, but overall: great job!
Thanks, seriously!
All you need to do is hide the apps and quizzes as the quizzes roll in, and you’ll never see that quiz again. Works for me, all I have on my page is just the personal stuff, no “Mafia Wars” or “What kind of flower are you” type stuff. You can just use the tools that are already there…