A lesson in optionality

[jducoeur]

[Side-note: I haven't been posting much. Sorry: work's been eating my brain, and I don't want to bore people with a complete excess of CommYou stuff.]

Facebook's latest feature is built-in chat: when you're in FB, there is simply chat *there*. It's not something you turn on -- it just sits at the bottom of your window. And you Can't Turn It Off. (Far as I can tell.)

Which wouldn't be so bad, except that it's taking up about 60% of my CPU, far as I can tell. I was initially worried that something in CommYou was running out of control, but no -- it's just as bad on the Facebook homepage. And since Chat is their new feature, I rather suspect it's the culprit.

Moral of the story: features that the user can't turn off are *bad*; cute features that they can't turn off are worse. A lesson for me to remember in CommYou...

Comments

[roozle.livejournal.com]

That ... explains a lot of badness that has been happening to me with computers lately.

thank you for posting that.

[sephiaowl.livejournal.com]

Actually, you can just mark yourself as unavailable, and I *think* that pretty much turns it off.

[serakit.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I'm definetely not getting a facebook until they fix that. I eat enough of my CPU as it is. (Once they've fixed it, I'll come play with CommYou.)

And two or three posts every couple of days is "not much"?

Huh

[metageek.livejournal.com]

I've still got 3 Facebook tabs open from 2 days ago, and Firefox's CPU usage is minimal (1-2%). Maybe their chat stuff just doesn't work on Firefox for Linux?

[laurion]

Huh. I'm not seeing any problems. I actually like the way they've implemented it; comparatively unobtrusive, and the notifications popup down there is also in the category of useful to me. I play Chess and Scrabulous, and it alerts me to when it is my turn. Unlike many web based chat systems, it eats a minimal amount of real estate when not actively engaged.

I agree that turning it off should be an option though.

Amusingly, Digsby (whih I can no longer use) has _already_ incorporated FB Chat.