How to Block or Remove a Facebook App

Everyone has that friend – the guy who feels like he must share every aspect of his Farmville experience with his Facebook friends. Or the woman who has to brag about her Bejeweled Blitz high score… every hour. Getting rid of these notifications is easy on Facebook, and blocking the more annoying apps is just as simple.

There are several options for hiding or blocking apps, depending on what you want to do.

Hiding apps from your newsfeed
If you see an annoying post by an app in your newsfeed, click the drop down box on the top right of the notification to display a list of options, including:

• Hide Story: You can simply hide this particular post from your newsfeed.
• Unsubscribe from friend: This will remove that person from your newsfeed entirely, meaning you won’t see any posts by him in the future.
• Unsubscribe from app activity by friend: You no longer see notifications for this app posted by this specific friend. You’ll continue to see the rest of his posts, and you’ll also continue to see notifications by this app for other friends.
• Hide all from app: You’ll no longer see this app in your newsfeed

The other way to manage apps is to to go into your Privacy Settings and select “Edit Settings” for “Ads, Apps and Websites.” Here you can elect to turn off all apps, if you never use them. Or, to remove selected apps, select “Edit Settings” for the “Apps you use” section and you can remove all of the individual apps you wish here.

I hadn’t visited this section recently and was surprised that I had over 50 apps active with my profile. I removed all but the three I actually use. It’s a good idea to go in periodically and remove apps, especially those you don’t recognize or remember authorizing in the first place.