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I want to disable the feature where I actually see that a friend read my message. At times I think it’s just better if I don’t know whether they’ve seen it or not.

N.B I am not talking about disabling the feature where when I click on a message they see that I have read it.

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that's not possible, facebook doesn't allow for that. –  Sathya Oct 2 '12 at 6:09
Related - webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/27355/… –  ChrisF Nov 27 '12 at 9:22
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3 Answers

After reading the message, mark it as unread. It won’t show them that you’ve read their message. But do it quick as if the person is online, he or she might notice.

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That’t not what the OP asked, he asked exactly the opposite. –  Alex Oct 4 '12 at 5:37
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There are some browser extensions with this function

[Chrome] FB unseen: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ihcedcpmfdpjijiamkaeaefgfagnnpei

[Firefox-userscript] Facebook Stealth: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/136261

Or block this url in any adblocker: facebook.com/ajax/mercury/change_read_status.php

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Thanks for your input however that's not the question I asked, my N.B states I am not talking about disabling the feature where when I click on a message they see that I have read it. –  Joel Dean Oct 6 '12 at 4:56
You can hide the text by add this query selector to adblocker: [class*='typingIndicator'][class*='seen'] OR add this CSS to Chrome's User StyleSheets: .seen{display:none !important;}td div.seen{display:none !important;} –  inDream Oct 6 '12 at 13:51
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You could use an extension such as StyleBot for Chrome to hide the HTML element that shows the text. There is an element at the bottom of the chat window with the class typingIndicator. This element controls the grey text at the bottom of the chat window, including when someone is typing and when someone has seen your message.

When this element contains a "seen" message, it will have the class seen. So, you can make it invisible when this condition is met using the following CSS rule:

.typingIndicator.seen { visibility: hidden }
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