Somewhen in the last hours facebook must've launched some update that offers me a "great new chat" and keeps prompting me to "try it now" by a hideously large sidebar that I can't get rid of. Plus I seem to be "available for chatting" all of a sudden after over 2 years of being offline, and I can't seem to permanently change that.

I F***ING HATE THE F***ING FACEBOOK CHAT. And I don't want to try it now. I don't want 10 random people to message me "HEEEY!! HOW ARE YOU!!" when I quickly log on to check a few things, so I want to be OFFLINE. Always.

Can someone PLEASE tell me how to get rid of this crap? Sorry for the rant... I know I'm a little hot-tempered but blame my italian grandma. Help!!!

Mine hasn't changed at all so i unfortunatly can't help you with it other than to say you should check all of your settings.

It's probably the skype update. As mentioned ^^ go into your settings and check whether new settings have been created. In terms of going 'offline', go under options within the chat panel on bottom right of screen or toggle the option, which is like a circle within an oval, to appear offline to your groups of friends.

I haven't gone onto Facebook this evening so I'm not much help with update issues.

Just ignore people & don't reply. If they ask why you didn't message back just say it must have been an issue with the new update because you never got their message. Sorted.

I've done all that.. looked through my settings and found nothing new. The options of my chat panel are now gone (and replaced by the side bar), they'll only reappear when I click on "try it now" - but then, when I set myself to "offline" and "disable sounds" and check "hide sidebar".. the next time I open FB it's all back. I don't know why stuff like this pisses me off so badly but it does.

"Ignore people and don't reply" or "avoid FB completely" sound like the best options right now Thanks for your help gals.

i have the same thing, put mine is set to off and its permanently off, i just had to put up with this hideous looking bar at the right hand side of the screen.

Mine seems to be permanently offline now as well, and finally the bar is gone. I just had to tell it like 5 times to HIDE IT and eventually it worked.

where do you click it hide it?

First you have to click on "try it now", nothing can be changed as long as the advertisement is there (which makes me angry again just by thinking about it lol). Then you'll see your new chat bar on the lower right as usual. If you're offline, you actually have to go online to change it (second GRRR). THEN a tiny little cogwheel is visible at the right side of the bar, probably on top. Click on that to get a small context menu where you can check "Hide Bar" and also set yourself to "not available" again if you want that.

Lucienna - 11 July 2011 11:18 AM

First you have to click on "try it now", nothing can be changed as long as the advertisement is there (which makes me angry again just by thinking about it lol). Then you'll see your new chat bar on the lower right as usual. If you're offline, you actually have to go online to change it (second GRRR). THEN a tiny little cogwheel is visible at the right side of the bar, probably on top. Click on that to get a small context menu where you can check "Hide Bar" and also set yourself to "not available" again if you want that.

i iwsh facebook would just leave things alone.

Have you gals seen the stuff about google+? Group video chat and the interface look pretty neat, could it be the next thing to contend with facebook?
I am now becoming annoyed with the sidebar on facebook...I blame Luci for making me see it. lol

Im thinking I'll be making the move to google+ once they open it up again to new members. Though I'm not sure how many of my friends will make the move, I'm sure I can persuade some.

I've grown to dislike Facebook, maybe through years of overuse in college? But the past few months I've only been visible on chat to one of my friends and tend to use an app to log into FB chat, thus totally avoiding the site altogether. FB is great though for awkward social situations and bank queues.

I use skype quite a bit but the group video chat looks cool and much sleeker on google+ than what I have seen skype on FB to be.

Some of my friends are already testing google+ and most do like it. What I really prefer is their "circle" system, so that you don't share everything by default with everyone but only with certain circles. The default option is "private", not "public", so you choose who to share it with from the beginning rather than adding restrictions. I prefer a "whitelist" to a "blacklist" system when it comes to sharing online. However like on facebook I doubt I'll be sharing all of my stuff all the time, I'm actually very cautious with my data and stuff, or try to be. Unlike here on PopChix where I tend to blurt out my thoughts as if it was the most private space on Earth and I realize the contradiction lol

I'm not a big chat person (used to be, but nowadays I really avoid it cause it eats up so much time and makes you spend it on people you don't give a **** about when everyone can just assault you with a chat request), so I haven't really checked out the chatting options of google+.

I guess since the introduction of facebook you can watch the global productivity decreasing.. daily
Okay... back to studying..

Okay FB basically said 'here you go, here's your new chat'.. and this.. this is what I get. Where's the glitz? The shininess? No. I get a chat bar with a big 0- online. There are always people online, I tend to hide from them. I was all prepared to make new groups so as to ensure I remained invisible to some (why are these on my profile you may wonder? They're people I get on with it in small doses. Some work colleagues and the likes). But now. Now I have to search for each individual friend to see if they are even online? Wut? Well this makes perfect sense. What if I need to ask a specific person something on the fly, now I have to click, type their name, click search, click their face, type and click.. the world moves much faster nowadays FB. Where's the kinect compatibility? I don't like to click anymore. I like to swoosh.

Not that it bothers me, I only use chat for one specific friend, but for humanity in general, or 750 million'ish of us at least, this, this sucks.

Roll on Google+.

I have most ppl in my FB in a group so i can just block them from the chat lol...only have like maybe 10 ppl that i talk to on the chat...and for my luck they are never all on at the same time...i hate when ppl talk to me all at the same time! I get so confused with so many windows!

What i haven't see is that video chat that ppl are talking about...how do you get that? Not that i'm gonna use it anyways...i have my Kinect for that ^_^

I've just downloaded the skype beta and still nada, its continually loading something on the facebook tab so I presume it's overloaded right now. Skype Beta

Yeah I think kinect and the persuasion of friends to MSN chat will be a better route. This is getting complicated.

If any of you ladies would like an invite to google+, let me know!

I am on Google+ too now. I like it.

DirtyDiva - 18 July 2011 06:16 PM

If any of you ladies would like an invite to google+, let me know!

Meeeee

I'm also on Google+...Not sure If I'm liking it at the moment but I'm sticking with it for a bit longer.
I was the same when I first joined Facebook and I'm now addicted so that could change :D

I'm also on Google+ but I'm not sure I get it. Other than circles there are no real options for filtering things.