How to hide the Facebook news feed

You keep Facebook for a few groups, the neighbourhood page, and Messenger. The feed is the price. Here are three ways to stop paying it.

Why there is no simple switch

Facebook's Home is the feed, and it lands you there every time. The settings let you pick a narrower feed or unfollow people, but there is no way to turn Home off or to hide Stories and Reels.

1. The built-in option: Feeds menu and unfollowing free, limited

The Feeds menu in the left sidebar offers Favourites, Friends, and Groups views that skip the algorithmic mix. Unfollowing people and pages quiets the main feed without unfriending anyone.

It reduces the noise, but the main feed, Stories bar, and Reels shelf are still the first thing on screen every time you open the site.

2. Replace the feed with an extension free, all or nothing

News Feed Eradicator was created for exactly this: it replaces the Facebook feed with a quote and nothing else. uBlock Origin's element picker can remove Stories and Reels too.

Very effective. The trade-off is that a removed feed is invisible even when a friend tells you to look at something, so you end up toggling the extension on and off.

3. Blur the feed, Stories, and Reels, keep groups and Messenger gentler

Softspot's Facebook preset blurs the news feed, the Stories bar, and the Reels shelf with one click each. Groups, events, Marketplace, Messenger, and any profile you open on purpose keep working, because nothing is removed from the page.

When you want to see the feed, hover and hold the peek button. It reveals for ten seconds, then blurs again on its own. Just enough friction to make scrolling a choice instead of a reflex.

How to set it up

1Install Softspot from the Chrome Web Store. It is free on two sites, and it asks for no site access until you blur something.
2Open the site, click the Softspot icon in your toolbar, and press + Blur next to News feed and Stories.
3Done. It stays blurred on every visit. To blur anything else on the page, press Alt+B and click it.

Which should you pick?

Built-in options if you want a lighter feed and do not mind it creeping back.

A removal extension if you never want to see it again and are fine with it being gone for good.

Softspot if you want it out of your face but still there when you genuinely need it, with the rest of the site working normally.

Questions people ask

Does this affect what my friends see or my account?

No. It only changes what appears in your own browser. Facebook and your friends see nothing different, and no account settings are touched.

Will it work in the Facebook app or on my phone?

No. Extensions run in desktop browsers. On mobile, the Feeds menu is your best option.

Put the noise out of focus

Softspot blurs the distracting parts of any website. Free on 2 sites, no account, no tracking.

Add Softspot to Chrome One-time upgrade for unlimited sites. Yours forever, no subscription.