How to completely hide the Facebook ticker

Some people love it, most seem to hate it. Until now, though, there was no real way to completely hide the Facebook ticker—you know, that scrolling feed of real-time alerts that ticks off each and every activity of your Facebook friends, no matter how minuscule they may be.

Sure, you could always try closing the Facebook chat sidebar, where the ticker lives if you’re lucky enough to have a large enough display. Another option was to keep the sidebar open and pull the divider between the ticker and your Facebook chat buddies all the way up.
Those with smaller displays (and thus, smaller browser windows), however, were stuck with the ticker in a column right next to the Facebook news feed—and until now, there was no way to make it completely disappear.

You can always make the ticker come back, if you really miss it.

Well, good news. As Inside Facebook reports, it is now possible to hide the Facebook ticker permanently, even if you view Facebook in a small browser window.
Here’s how you do it.

• First, if you have the Facebook chat sidebar open (the one that includes your Facebook friends who are available for chat), go ahead and close it. When you do, the ticker will pop into a column to the right of your news feed.
• Next, look for the little arrow at the top of the ticker; hover your mouse over the arrow, and a little pop-up reading “Hide Sidebar” will appear.
• Go ahead and click the arrow. Presto! The ticker will disappear—and it should stay disappeared, even when you return to Facebook in the future.
• Want the sidebar back? Just click the arrow again.

Note: As Inside Facebook points out, not everyone on Facebook may have the “Hide Sidebar” button showing up on their accounts yet; if that’s the case for you, be patient—it’ll likely show up sooner or later.