Live data from Hacker News

Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

garron.me

31–40 of 65 posts

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#31
If you still like the idea of buttons, but don't want to give up using the vendor-supplied buttons themselves, you can use the "two clicks for more privacy" jQuery plugin[0], which only loads the actual button when the user enables it by clicking a greyed-out placeholder.

[0] http://panzi.github.io/SocialSharePrivacy/

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#32
post #31

If you still like the idea of buttons, but don't want to give up using the vendor-supplied buttons themselves, you can use the "two clicks for more privacy" jQuery plugin[0], which only loads the actual button when the user enables it by clicking a greyed-out placeholder. [0] http://panzi.github.io/SocialSharePrivacy/

Nice. thanks.

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#33
This seems like a great time to plug RequestPolicy:

"ReuestPolicy is a Firefox extension that improves the privacy and security of your browsing by giving you control over when cross-site requests are allowed by webpages you visit."[1]

It is even better if you pair it with NoScript.[2] Whenever I toy with the idea of switching to Chrome I am always end up sticking with iceweasel because of the lack of equivalent RP+NS functionality in Chrome. If you are currently using ghostery I highly suggest you switch to RP+NS.

[1] https://www.requestpolicy.com/index.html

[2] http://noscript.net/

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#34
I love how security expert Bruce Schneier (https://www.schneier.com) has implemented it. This also gives you an ability to see how popular an article is (based on the sharing numbers) if you want, which is another purpose these widgets serve.

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#35
...and find your click rates plummet.

Which is fine if you're OK with that cost. But a lot of users aren't going to notice those links, let alone select them, copy them and paste them.

If I already have to copy and paste a link, why not the actual page URL?

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#36
post #16

We've been using the same method for quote some time now. Not just for privacy purposes, but also performance-wise all these scripts and iframes are a bit much. Demo and code at http://simpleshare.schuttelaar.nl/

Mmm, I've been in situations before where marketing absolutely insist on packing the page full of sharing widgets, and it has a horrible impact on clientside performance.

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#37
post #17

Facebook has stated that the sharer.php is deprecated. https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/252983554810810/ It appears to have an unclear lifespan. While it has been fully replaced by the Feed Dialog, it's still working now and is used all over the internet. I can see the case where it won't see any further development or features, but it's a tough call whether or not to incorporate the deprecated method or accept p…

You can fairly easily use /dialog/feed "manually" instead of sharer.php if you're worried about the latter's lifespan – you just need to set up an app for your domain first since "app_id" is a required param (and also "next", which is a redirect URI on the same domain). Example: http://antiprism.eu/en#share

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#38

Those networks can still track user habits by clicking the URL. In one acorn, they will know they came from your site, any user agent information, screen size (via JS on the social network site), if they are logged in they will associate them going to your site even if they decide not to share the URL. The only thing they aren't seeing is additional analytic data they're missing out by not having there JS installed o…

But only the habits of people who "like" the page, not the habits of every facebook user who merely /visits/ the page

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#39

In regards to not tracking users...integrating a http request to Google for JQuery, is still tracking users. I always find this ironic about these articles don't track your users , or prism is watching, let's use mailvelope , some of these pages that is promoting privacy, integrates google analytics, have a share button, or some type of off server request.

The Google CDN serves its scripts from a cookie-less domain and with an aggressive far-future expires header. Best case, a given user may only need to make one request to Google per year for a given script, and even when they do there aren't any tracking cookies to make that request worth much at all in terms of tracking. You're right that Analytics isn't great for privacy, but their AJAX Libraries CDN is configured in a diametrically opposite way.

Re: Why to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus share links and not buttons

#40
post #17

Facebook has stated that the sharer.php is deprecated. https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/252983554810810/ It appears to have an unclear lifespan. While it has been fully replaced by the Feed Dialog, it's still working now and is used all over the internet. I can see the case where it won't see any further development or features, but it's a tough call whether or not to incorporate the deprecated method or accept p…

The bug you referenced is from over a year ago and in fact the feature is no longer deprecated. The documentation page [1] used to highlight the deprecated status but has recently been updated and any mentions of deprecation have been removed.

[1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/share...

Post reply on HN