Remove Highlighted Stories From Your Facebook News Feed
Out of the recent updates that have been made to Facebook, there are two that bug me the most. First is the fact that certain sites (especially Yahoo! News) have started sharing which pages you view on your profile. Even if you have nothing to hide, it is not right for Facebook to post things without asking for your permission.
The second thing that bugs me is the “Highlighted Stories” list that goes above the normal News Feed. This list selects the stories that Facebook has detected to be most applicable and relevant to you. However, I prefer to view a chronological list of statuses that have been posted since I last visited the site. The normal News feed is there, but you have to scroll past the Highlighted Stories to get there.
Fortunately, you can “remove” the Highlighted Stories section from your Facebook News Feed. The section technically doesn’t go away, but the stories are put into their proper place in the chronological order of the News Feed rather than the top of your page.
To change the ordering of your Facebook News Feed, look under and to the right of the “Ask Question” link. You should see a little, gray link entitled “Sort.” Click on it, and a menu will pop down asking how you want to sort your News Feed. Select “Recent Stories First.” Your News Feed will now appear on the top of the page, with highlighted stories appearing in the proper order for the time in which they appeared.
Thanks Jake! I was getting tired of all of the ‘top stories’.
Unfortunately it has been my experience that every time I shut down my browser and the open a new browser I have to re-select this sorting option.
Weird. Are you browsing in private mode? Or do you have some sort of program that is deleting your cookies?
Keith is right. It’s not permanent. When i turn my computer on in the morning it’s the same old crap every day. And no, my cookies are not deleted, tho my cache is cleared or else Firefox would never work right. And the highlighting is inconsistent and illogical; out of say, 6 or 7 identical posts by anyone (sharing construction materials for instance), maybe 2 are highlighted. Why? FB says they are highlighted based on your interests, the number of people who have commented on them (impossible if it’s a new post) etc. There is no apparent reason for it, on any level. I’ve never seen a satisfactory explanation of why any post should be highlighted.
Had already tried this to no avail! Still keeps putting highlighted stories first! It just highlights crap too, sooo going off Facebook big time!
Aww, that’s too bad. I’m getting pretty close to dumping Facebook myself.
I have the same experience as Keith. Every time I close my browser, or even navigate to a profile page on facebook and come back, the sorting has reset itself to highlighted stories first. I use google chrome.
I definitely still like seeing what my friends and family are up to, so I am not going to ditch it. I just LOVE when things are in a logical order!
AND: I agree- what is with all this online news nonsense posting on facebook? Lammeee.
That is quite weird. Even after clearing my cache and cookies, the option still remains at “recent stories first.” I haven’t been able to replicate this. Odd.