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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-11T01:26:09+00:00

<!–Load scripts for Facebook scraper–> <div id=fb-root></div> <script> window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId

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<!--Load scripts for Facebook scraper-->
 <div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>
 window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
  FB.init({
  appId  : '154617751273927',
  status : true, // check login status
  cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session
  xfbml  : true  // parse XFBML
});
};

 (function() {
var e = document.createElement('script');
e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';
e.async = true;
document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);
}());

What is meant by the use of the word “scraper” in the comment? This looks like an async function, and it’s http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js

I am not sure what this al.js does. The result of that attached to the fb-root element.

What does this async function do and why is it called a “scraper”?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You have asked in your question-

    I am not sure what this al.js does

    Actually all.js is the Facebook JavaScript SDK (Software Development Kit) a JavaScript file with all common options.

    What does this async function do

    The async function loads the SDK/all.js file asynchronously which means it doesn’t stop the page rendering during the loading of that file.

    The SDK inserts elements into fb-root which expect to be positioned relative to the body or relative to an element close to the top of the page.

    The function assigned to window.fbAsyncInit is run as soon as the SDK is loaded. Any code that you want to run after the SDK is loaded should be placed within this function and after the call to FB.init.

    Why is it called a scraper

    Web scraping is closely related to web indexing, which indexes
    information on the web using a bot and is a universal technique
    adopted by most search engines. In contrast, web scraping focuses more
    on the transformation of unstructured data on the web, typically in
    HTML format, into structured data that can be stored and analyzed in a
    central local database or spreadsheet. Web scraping is also related to
    web automation, which simulates human browsing using computer
    software. Uses of web scraping include online price comparison,
    weather data monitoring, website change detection, research, web
    mashup and web data integration. Read More…

    A little about faceBook __scraper__ from my understanding

    Actually, it can scrape data from the website (from your site, because you’ve used it/all.js) and can send that data to Facebook. Basically, one common example of this scraping is FaceBook Like button on web pages. When a user clicks on the faceBook Like button the scraper (all.js in this case) scrape some data from that site and sends those data to the faceBook and FaceBook posts those data to the user’s profile but this is only one example. FaceBook scraper allows users to “Connect with Facebook” for an immersive and customized blog post or video experience. Users’ FB info such as name, age, location, profile picture, interests, etc., are scraped and weaved into a branded story.

    You can read more here.

    On the web, some sites using __scraper__ also still data/content from good websites and posts into other websites by changing/modifying the original data. A few days ago I’ve found one of my SO answer on a different site and I really shocked. I’ve reported on meta about this, you may find it interesting.

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