I pretty much leave my computer on and open all the time. And more than likely there’s about 20 websites open in a browser (no, I’m not going to get into any arguments about what browser I should be using so suffice it to say “a browser”), spread across a number of windows, tabs, etc. Occasionally I get a pop-up from someone wanting to chat with me through Facebook, whether I’m sitting at my computer or not. Since there have been a few times when that happened and I wasn’t around, I felt like I was being somewhat rude. So, I went ahead and went looking for a way to disable the chat feature of Facebook.
To do so, open Facebook and click on the icon in the lower right hand corner of the screen (far right hand side). Here, you’ll see an icon of a silhouette of a person with a green or red dot. When you hover over the icon, you’ll see a helper that says simply Chat. If the dot is red then you are not currently “Online” and the Chat feature is therefore effectively disabled. If the dot is green then you are Online. Click on the dot and then click on “Go Offline” to disable the Chat feature. To turn it back on, click on “Go Online.”