Top five things to hate about Facebook

Eight months ago, we discovered that Facebook had suddenly become more popular than online free porn.

And this week we found out that the site has finally overtaken MurdochSpace as the King of social networking.

Facebook it seems, is unique in its ability to make everyone hate it with a passion, and yet it still manages to tempt most people into logging in multiple times a day.

I used to think Facebook was the cat's pyjamas. I was full of praise two years ago. These days however, I find the site every bit as irritating as that tiny bit of toenail that always catches when you put your socks on.

It's like the brittle sludge that sticks to the top of tomato ketchup bottles in dirty pubs – bad enough to induce general abhorrence, but not so irritating as to persuade people to do anything about it - we all need ketchup, after all.

We get a lot of emails about Facebook and all its annoying quirks. So after collating them and polling the TechRadar team, here's our list of the top five most annoying things about Facebook.

It takes a particular kind of person to completely miss the point of the Facebook status update. And yet I'd bet that everyone has at least one friend on Facebook who regularly misuses it.

An acceptable status update:
"Alex is going to Glastonbury and has a spare ticket if anyone wants it?"

An unacceptable status update:
"Johnny is fed up of certain people taking him for granted and is waiting for an apology"

Some people need to think before they type.

But even when you take the weird ones out of the equation, if you check the main Facebook status page, you realise it's like one of those folders found on hotel room dressing-tables - full of astoundingly dull information.

It's a damning indictment on the Facebook applications, that most people's profiles now uncannily resemble something that might hit a window after a particularly violent sneeze.

I've got otherwise-ordinary people in my friends list, who for some unknown reason choose to litter their profiles with over 20 applications. Why do people do it?

I think the photo galleries on Facebook are great. Being able to tag your mates in the photos from 'last night' is incredibly cool. However, sometimes people can be a little stupid.

Sometimes a person will take a folder of all the photos they took – and upload every single one of them. Including all the blurry ones. All the ones with peoples' heads chopped off. And all of the ones they took in their pocket by accident.

People like browsing their friends' photos – but not when they've shown absolutely no initiative in deciding which ones to put on display.

One of the biggest bugbears amongst the Facebook community is the 'random friend request'. You know, that bloke who your friends' brothers' girlfriend once met at a party, who now wants to be your friend simply because you've got several mutual acquaintances.

There are variables of course: like that girl you didn't like the look of at school and subsequently never even spoke to – she adds you because she recognised your name 15 years later and forgot that you once considered each other to be mortal enemies.

Or worse – you get added by someone whose name and face you recognise but can't quite place – and you accept the invite because you have no idea who it is and therefore you can't risk offending them. It's intolerable cruelty.

I was sitting at my desk one day about six months ago and I realise that about three people I was expecting an email from, hadn't bothered to get in touch. It confused me for a couple of days, until I logged into Facebook and realised the blighters had been "facebooking" me instead.

This tendency to send site-specific messages was one of the most annoying things about MurdochSpace before I finally abandoned it 18 months or so ago.

I can see why someone who doesn't have your email address might do it – but for the people who do, why bother? Whenever this happens now it puts me into a mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything.

And what about those other things? Like waking up on a Saturday morning after a particularly loose night on the town, only to discover that to go with your stonking hangover your friends have tagged you in 62 'oh dear' photos?

And how about the recently-added 'People you may know' column?