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By Whitson Gordon The Always Up-to-Date Guide to Managing Your Facebook Privacy
Despite plenty of user complaints, Facebook still hasn't caught on to the "opt-in" philosophy: Most of us feel that when a service adds a new feature that affects our privacy, it should ask whether we want to enable it rather than quietly enabling it for us. Facebook adds new features to their site all the time, and many of those features share information you might not want out there. Instead of regularly scouring your Facebook settings for secret new features, we're going to constantly update this guide with all the information you need about Facebook's newest privacy-related changes, including details for how to tweak your privacy settings to keep your information safe. First, we'll walk through the basic privacy settings that determine what you share, then look at a few lesser-known settings you'll want to tweak, and finish with a few third-party tools that will help keep your Facebook information private. The Basic Privacy Settings: What You ShareFacebook's main Privacy Settings page has a pretty good overview of what you'll want to change, and presents it in a way that's mostly easy to understand. Here's how each of the four sections work. Connecting on Facebook
If you don't want everyone seeing all your information (like where you live or where you work), you should change them here. I let anyone search for me, send me friend requests, and see my friend list, but other than that I've left everything else as "Friends of Friends". Chances are high that if someone's friending me on Facebook, I know them through someone else, so it shouldn't be hard for them to find me—everyone else I'd rather keep in the dark about who I am, where I live, and where I work. Sharing on Facebook
You can click on the "Customize Settings" link below the table to further refine your choices. That lets you set each specific option to viewable by everyone, friends of friends, friends and your networks, Friends only, and so on. You can even set specific phone numbers of email addresses separately, which is pretty nice. In addition, you can also create custom friend lists (say, "work buddies") that you can include or exclude from certain information.. I'd comb through this section no matter what you do, since there are some settings here that aren't on the main table. We'll talk more about those in the next section, "Lesser-Known Settings". Applications and WebsitesThis is where you'll control which Facebook applications can access your profile, and what web sites outside of Facebook can access your account. Click on the Edit settings button to tweak them.
The rest of this page you'll probably want to lock down as much as possible. Under "Info accessible thorugh your friends", you'll want to uncheck all those boxes, so your friends' apps can't access your information (God knows what spammy applications they're using). You'll want to disable the Instant personalization feature as well, which will let sites like Pandora and Yelp use your Facebook account to give you extra "features" (also known as: spam). Lastly, unless you want your Facebook page coming up in Google results, you'll want to turn off Public search as well. Block Lists
To tweak these settings, just hit "Edit Your Lists" under Block Lists. To add a friend to any of those lists, just type in their name. You can also block them from the main Facebook interface. You can block a user that wrote on your wall, ignore event invites when someone invites you to an event, or block an app that someone invites you to. So you don't always have to come back to this page to block someone. Lesser-Known Settings You'll Want to TweakApart from the more obvious settings above, Facebook has implemented a few features that aren't as well-known. Some are a bit privacy-invading, and need to be turned off, while others are good for your privacy but have to be turned on (nice job, Facebook). Here are the ones you'll want to keep an eye out for. Turn Off Facebook Places
To turn it off, just head back into your Privacy Settings and hit the "Customize Settings" link under the table. Scroll down to "Things I Share" and set "Places I check in" to "Only Me", which will keep Facebook from sharing your location with anyone. You also might as well Disable the "Include me in 'People Here Now'" setting while you're at it, which is right below the "Places I check in" setting. You'll also definitely want to go to "Things Others Share" and disable the "Friends can check me into Places" setting, which stops your friends from sharing your location from their account. By default, this should be off for most people, but it's probably a good idea to double-check. Turn Off Facial Recognition
Turn On HTTPS to Lock Down Your Private InformationWith privacy-invading apps like previously mentioned Firesheep out there, it's more important than ever to secure yourself on web sites that have personal information on them, like Facebook. HTTPS will protect you from a lot of outside attacks, especially when you're browsing on open Wi-Fi networks.
Turn On Two-Factor Authentication to Keep Others from Logging Into Your Account
To enable this feature, head to your Account Settings and scroll down to Account Security. Under "Login Approvals", check the box that says "Require me to enter a security code sent to my phone". That way, you'll get a notification every time a new device tries to access your account, and if it's you, you can plug in the code to get access. Extensions and Tools That Enhance Your Privacy Even MoreThese are all great, but there are a few Facebook annoyances that you can't fix from your account settings. Thankfully, you can pick up a few browser extensions that'll help you out. Here are some we recommend. Facebook Disconnect
AdBlock Plus
||facebook.com^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net ||facebook.net^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net ||fbcdn.com^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net ||fbcdn.net^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net From then on, other sites shouldn't be able to use your currently-logged-in Facebook account to add "features" (also known as: spam) to other online services. F.B. Purity and Better Facebook
While they don't boost your privacy per se, they will get rid of a lot of the annoying spam on Facebook and, in turn, keep you from accidentally clicking on something you shouldn't. Plus, they just provide a cleaner experience. Internet Shame Insurance
This should help keep your Facebook a little more locked down, like it was when you first signed up for it. These features are always changing, though, so we'll update the post whenever Facebook adds something new. We'll also put that info on the front page of Lifehacker as it happens, but it's a good idea to run through this guide ever few months just to make sure you've caught everything, since there is a lot of info here. Also, if we've missed anything, be sure to let us know in the comments, and we'll add it to the post. You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page. | June 21st, 2011 Top Stories
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