Facebook chat rolled out yesterday but apparently some users are already tired of it. Jesse Stay just contacted me to tell me about a new greasemonkey script that he hacked together that blocks chat for Facebook users. Personally, I’ve kind of enjoyed the limited amount of Facebook chat experience I’ve had so far aside from the fact that it’s limited to the browser. I’d like to have a standalone Facebook chat clients as well as an email client.
Seriously I have no idea what’s taking Facebook so long to roll out an updated messaging system but the current one is horrendous. My current inbox on Facebook has over 250 messages and there is no hope of recovery. Anyways, aside from my Facebook inbox, having a tool to blog Facebook chat could be useful for many. The only problem is that even though the Greasemonkey script will block chat, your friends will still be notified that you are online.
Receive a message? You simply won’t receive it causing your friends to assume that you have now ignored them and no longer want to speak to them ever again. This is the risk you take when you play with greasey monkeys. Still though, for those that have 5,000 friends (or close to it), signing on to Facebook can be a detriment to your health with an instant influx of 30 plus messages taking up your entire screen. For those few that have friend overload, I’m sure that this tool will come in handy.
Update
As a number of people pointed out in the comments, apparently there is a way to simply go offline. All you have to do is go to the right hand side of the Chat bar and click “Go Offline.” Figuring out how to use chat would definitely be a good idea, prior to building applications around it 
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Click on the silhouette all the way to the right of the chat bar. In that menu, you can change settings, set yourself as offline, pop the chat out, etc. Why not just set yourself as offline?
Comment by Joel — April 24, 2008 @ 10:21 am
I agree with Joel… Why hack Facebook and piss off your friends (who think you're online) when you can just select "Go Offline" in the chat menu…? I guess I don't see the point. Does it do something going offline doesn't?
Comment by Dylan — April 24, 2008 @ 10:39 am
If you set the "Online Status" visibility to "No one" in your privacy settings, then you have to manually set your chat status to "Online" everytime you log in. This would eliminate your "no longer want to speak to (your friends) ever again" scenario.
Comment by Bryden — April 24, 2008 @ 11:07 am
Thanks for sharing this Nick. Maybe I'll see if I can figure out a way to turn off the "online" status – that may be impossible though because I think that just comes from your session data on Facebook's servers. It may be cool to have the script listen for chats and respond with an away message of some sort though – some things to think about, assuming they are possible. Thanks again for sharing it.
Comment by Jesse Stay — April 24, 2008 @ 11:12 am
Hi Nick, Webware has posted an article about having Facebook chat load in your sidebar so you can chat with your friends while browsing websites other than Facebook.http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9927785-2.html
Comment by Brian Herbert — April 24, 2008 @ 11:43 am
Hi Nick, Webware has posted an article about having Facebook chat load in your sidebar so you can chat with your friends while browsing websites other than Facebook.
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9927785-2.html
Comment by Brian Herbert — April 24, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
Click on the silhouette all the way to the right of the chat bar. In that menu, you can change settings, set yourself as offline, pop the chat out, etc. Why not just set yourself as offline?
Comment by Joel — April 24, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
I agree with Joel… Why hack Facebook and piss off your friends (who think you’re online) when you can just select “Go Offline” in the chat menu…? I guess I don’t see the point. Does it do something going offline doesn’t?
Comment by Dylan — April 24, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
If you set the “Online Status” visibility to “No one” in your privacy settings, then you have to manually set your chat status to “Online” everytime you log in. This would eliminate your “no longer want to speak to (your friends) ever again” scenario.
Comment by Bryden — April 24, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
Thats why there is an offline button.. duh!
Comment by jon — April 24, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
Thats why there is an offline button.. duh!
Comment by jon — April 24, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
you know what would help? a prompt at sign/log in, whether you want to appear online or offline, for pete's sake. gmail too… heck, any app that has a visibility attribute. i can never remember if i left my status visible. it pisses my friends off even more that show up for three seconds and then go 'offline'.
angry messages about being ignored ensue. i just want to check my messages… is that so hard???
Comment by mk2 — November 27, 2010 @ 4:50 am