Ask HN: echo "127.0.0.1 facebook.com" ›› /etc/hosts?
8 comments
I think it's reasonable. I have a number of sites (reddit.com, facebook.com and google-analytics.com) blocked in the same way in my /etc/hosts
Since I don't have Facebook account I very rarely need to unblock it for anything and it's a bit of a pain to do so it stops me wasting time on sites like reddit.
Since I don't have Facebook account I very rarely need to unblock it for anything and it's a bit of a pain to do so it stops me wasting time on sites like reddit.
Same here.
What I find most surprising is the widespread belief that one "cannot delete one's Facebook account." (( http://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account, http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_ac... ))
This is surprising for the fact that no API of this sort sanely exists that does [EDIT: not*] allow for such a feature. I mean, to hazard a bit of hand waving and choir-preaching (perhaps): but it's shocking the rift between those who know what "CRUD" means and those who don't.
Why would anyone believe that one cannot "D" (delete) in the Facebook, given the historical trend of Web app dev practices, the organic SEO that has emerged around those practices, and the wealth of tags on the Web which contain terms like "CRUD."
It's almost unsettling...
What I find most surprising is the widespread belief that one "cannot delete one's Facebook account." (( http://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account, http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_ac... ))
This is surprising for the fact that no API of this sort sanely exists that does [EDIT: not*] allow for such a feature. I mean, to hazard a bit of hand waving and choir-preaching (perhaps): but it's shocking the rift between those who know what "CRUD" means and those who don't.
Why would anyone believe that one cannot "D" (delete) in the Facebook, given the historical trend of Web app dev practices, the organic SEO that has emerged around those practices, and the wealth of tags on the Web which contain terms like "CRUD."
It's almost unsettling...
I guess it depends on what people mean here by "delete". Do they mean erased as in no more data records, or no longer viewable / interfaceable from an application level. For instance, once I'm prod I almost always set a deleted flag instead of actually deleting for whatever piece of data it is in my CRUD actions. The Information is still there, and can be restored at any time, but its still "deleted" as far as my app is concerned.
Wow! I was looking for a way to block Facebook and this is the best way I can think of :)
This is actually a great idea. I'm definitely going to start doing this.
I've done that for a few forums and gaming sites to discourage myself from wasting time there. A lot of people used to trade lists of marketing domains for adding to their hosts files before browser plugins were created for the same purpose. It is not an uncommon practice and should not bother anybody unless they suddenly need to access one of these sites from your computer, which can be easily fixed for a short time.
Usually if someone asks, "May I use your laptop to browse Facebook?" I will tell them that I have to re-configure a few things first. This usually steers the conversation to some other direction.
Generally, I don't want sites which use Facebook "like" buttons or Facebook's comments API to complete those requests from my system.
Is this good practice? Socially or technically?