Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Fluff Busting Purity

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Developer(s)
  
Steve Fernandez

Written in
  
JavaScript, CSS

Initial release
  
2009

Operating system
  
Cross-platform

Stable release
  
18.0.1 / 19th February 2017

Type
  
Google Chrome extension Firefox extension Edge extension Opera extension Maxthon extension Greasemonkey script

Fluff Busting Purity, or FB Purity for short (previously known as Facebook Purity) is a web browser extension designed to customise the Facebook website's user interface and add extra functionality. Developed by Steve Fernandez, a UK-based programmer, it was first released in 2009 as a Greasemonkey script, as donationware. It is available for Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Opera and the Maxthon Cloud Browser.

In February 2012, Fernandez was banned from Facebook, although he was allowed back two weeks later. In April, Facebook blocked links to his site, with an error message saying the site was "spammy or abusive", a generic error message given for any site that they deem to have violated their terms and conditions for any reason. Facebook have since changed the wording of the error message that is displayed when a user tries to post a link to the FB Purity website, and it is currently "The content you're trying to share includes a link that our security systems detected to be unsafe". However, if you scan the domain name into any online website security scanner the results indicate that the site is safe. The scans at VirusTotal have timestamps, so can be traced back to the beginning; they have never flagged FB Purity as unsafe. Facebook does allow FB Purity to have a "Fan Page" at the following URL http://facebook.com/fluffbustingpurity.

In December 2012, the company both objected to the name "Facebook Purity" (which Fernandez changed to 'Fluff Busting Purity' in response), and claimed that its development violates the site's Terms of Service. In response to this perceived violation, the company told Fernandez he was unauthorized to access Facebook, which he described at the time as potentially the "end of the road" for the script's development, however he is still maintaining and updating the add-on so they clearly haven't enforced the ban.

References

Fluff Busting Purity Wikipedia