Seen this a couple of times on various sites and had a couple people ask me on Twitter about it.

Starting October 1st, Facebook will start requiring two new things:

1. OAuth 2.0 support. SFC has this in version 1.1, which will be released shortly (tomorrow, probably).

2. Canvas and Page Tab Applications will require HTTPS/SSL support.

Both of these are true.

However, some people are interpreting that second one to mean that you need to buy an SSL certificate for your own domain to use Facebook Connect type of functionality, like my plugin Simple Facebook Connect provides. This is false.

A “Canvas” application is one that runs on your site, but shows up on http://apps.facebook.com. A “Page Tab” application is similar, but can show up anywhere on the facebook.com website, depending on how it’s written (it makes a “tab” for somebody’s “Page”). Both of those have something in common: Your website’s contents are actually showing up on *.facebook.com.

Simple Facebook Connect does neither of these things. SFC is a way for you to integrate Facebook connection functionality back into your own site. It can publish stories to Facebook, it can let users comment using Facebook, etc., but the whole point of it is to take things from FB and put them on your site. SFC does not enable your site to appear under the *.facebook.com domain name.

You do NOT need an SSL certificate to use SFC, and you will continue to not need one after October 1st.

You will, however, need to upgrade to SFC 1.1. Old versions, including 1.0, will cease to function.

SFC 1.1 will most likely be released tomorrow, and should be a painless upgrade from 1.0. Sorry for the delay.

Shortlink:

15 Comments

  1. Thanks for the info.. I’ll leave it a canvas whatever that is for now but do you know how to turn it off? what on the edit app will let me get rid of the https in the future…

  2. I’m logged into facebook right now but none of your facebook likes work. I can twitter but not like or recommend.

  3. Hello,

    This is what I have been looking for. Thank you. I first read about these FB in relation to WPBook, another FB integration plug in. I had presumed that SFC would have similar problems. I’m going to spend a large part of my day installing SFC on a site I’ve just launced and have been holding off. Thanks again

    • Yes, WPBook is an integration plugin, meaning that it lets your blog show up on facebook.com as a canvas or a page tab. In such a case, yes, you would need to have an SSL certificate for your site.

      SFC doesn’t do the same things WPBook does.

  4. After updateing I get an errormmessage from Facebook:

    The post’s links must direct to the application’s connect or canvas URL.

    So what´s wrong ?

  5. The following code for placing a login button into my theme has stopped working:

    Any suggestions on a fix?

  6. Hello:

    We’ve updated the SFC in some of our web sites and while Facebook Fan Box (SFC) works in FireFox 5, it does not work in iExplorer 8. Anyone else getting this too? What to do to fix it?

  7. Hi,

    I recently upgraded SFC and I’m having certain problems with it.
    When I click on ‘publish to facebook fan page’ I get an error saying the following:

    “The post’s links must direct to the application’s connect or canvas URL.”

    Another problem I’m facing is, when I click the “like” button at the bottom of any post, the entire body of the post moves up and cuts off the top of the post. I have provided my website link so you can test it out there.

    So if you could get back to me on these issues I’d highly appreciate it.

    Thank you.

    • With the first problem, go to your FB Application, go into the Advanced settings, and turn off the “Stream post URL security” option.

      Dunno about the second issue. The behavior of the Like button isn’t up to the plugin.

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