Top 6 Facebook annoyances and how to fix them

Facebook's biggest makeover to date, called Timeline, went live worldwide in September 2011. (Facebook)

Facebook changes features like Kim Kardashian changes husbands.

Just when users get comfortable with the latest iteration of “New Facebook,” Zuckerberg and company go and change something else, drawing the ire of its millions of users. Here are six Facebook annoyances that are currently grinding our gears and ways to deal with each.

Sarcastically called the “stalker feed” by some users, the News Ticker has replaced the News Feed. Right above their list of friends available to chat, users are assaulted by an ongoing barrage of inane news including everything their friends liked and what they commented on.

Solution: Users looking to ditch the News Ticker can install Facebook News Ticker Remover (Google Chrome) or the Facebook Ticker Removal (Firefox) add-on which will automatically remove the offending feature.

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There used to be a time where you could just delete that embarrassing photo from Facebook, and if you were prone to drunk posting, you could rest easy in the knowledge that soon it would disappear from your timeline never to be seen again. With the new iteration of Timeline, every bad picture and misspelled status update will be on display forever.

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Solution: While you might not be able to erase all those regrettable photos and statuses of yore, you can control who gets to see them. Simply pull down the menu next to the Home button on your Facebook page and click Privacy Settings then Timeline Viewer Settings. From there, scroll down to Limit the Audience for Past Posts column and hit the Manage Past Post Visibility tab. Click OK and your timeline goes from public to friends only.

People looking to make part of their private Facebook pages public can open themselves up to subscribers, people who can sign up to read your updates without being approved “friends.” Users can then follow those pages and hopefully have an invigorating exchange of ideas. However, many people are complaining of inordinate amounts of spam and inappropriate content filling their news feed.

Solution: Freedom from that unwanted spam is only a few clicks away. To turn off Facebook Subscribe, click on Subscriptions in the left side menu. From there, click Edit under Subscribers and switch On to Off.

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Remember when you could quickly and easily scroll through all your friends’ Facebook photos without being held up by slow loading times? Facebook took all the convenience and fun of scrolling through photos and replaced it with theater-style pop-up photos. Sure the image is bigger, but some images can take longer to load than others, making photo-cruising an unnecessary exercise in patience.

Solution: Installing Revert Facebook Photo Viewer on Google Chrome or Facebook Photo Theater Killer on Firefox will display your photos in Facebook Classic style. Firefox users must have the Greasemonkey add-on installed first.

By default, apps like Spotify, Ticketmaster and Foursquare share every tiny detail of your life with all of your friends. Instead of just learning about a job promotion or a new relationship, all your contacts can now be privy to what tickets you purchased from Ticketmaster or what song you’re listening to on Spotify. It’s great for advertisers, but an overshare nightmare for everyone else.

Solution: Don’t want everyone to know you just listened to Kenny G. on Spotify? Just go to Privacy Settings, click Edit Settings next to Apps and Websites, and then hit Edit Settings by the Instant Personalizations Header.

From there, uncheck the “Enable instant personalization on all partner sites” tab.

Facebook has become a haven for casual gamers who sink hours into tending their farms, building a criminal empire or creating villages for their virtual insect colonies. Unfortunately many of these misguided souls insist on inviting you to join the “fun,” sending you invite after invite to join the next big “Ville,” deluging your Facebook notifications and annoying you to no end.

Solution: Go to Privacy Settings and select Manage Blocking next to Blocked People and Apps.

Then enter the offending person’s name in the Block App Invites field and voila! It’ll be game over for all those unwanted game invites.