As many of you may or may not, Facebook recently changed its security settings again (for a decent in-depth look at the changes, look here). That means now is a good a time as any to discuss the best ways to maximise your Facebook security settings. Your online security and privacy should be one of your number one priorities, and these are the best ways to put your profile on lock down.
Maximize Facebook Security Settings
Earlier this year, Facebook began rolling out a new feature called Privacy Shortcuts. To access it, click on the new tab located next to the regular settings tab (refer to our first image). This tab will allow you to adjust several of your major settings, and even send you through a privacy check-up. The privacy check-up shows users how to set their privacy settings for statuses and other posts. The quick settings allow users to easily change major settings such as who can see your future posts, who can directly message you, and even add people to your block list.
But, there are a lot more things to be changed if you truly want to maximize your facebook security settings.
Facebook Security Settings – In Depth
Let’s start in the most obvious place: your security settings.
This is the place where you will do all of the major changes, and it also has the most influence over how you access your account. You can do obvious things like set up a two step verification process, where your phone will be required to log into a new computer. You can also assign special passwords to log into apps instead of your actual password. You can also set up Trusted Contacts to help you log in when you get locked out, or should anything happen to you. These steps certainly make it difficult to access your account, but it is only the second step to maximize your security settings on Facebook.
Manage Privacy Settings
Next, you will want to ramp up your privacy settings.
In your privacy settings, you can manage things like who can see your posts, who can contact you, and who can look you up. The most important option is the Limit Past Posts option. This will limit how far back users can look into your history. It’s great for stopping random stalkers from learning about your whole life without you knowing.
Timeline and Tagging section is pretty obvious; it controls who can post on your Timeline and tag you in posts/photos. It also lets you control who can see your posts or posts you are tagged in. It’s a great way to weed out random friends of friends you don’t need looking at your stuff.
The Blocking settings are also obvious. Add in a user’s email and they will instantly be added to your block list. You can also block app and event invites, apps, and other Facebook pages. If you are being overwhelmed by a ton of invites every day, this will be the best thing for you.
Changing these settings will put you over halfway through the process to maximize your Facebook security settings (I told you we were going in-depth!).
Apps & Ads Settings
Last, but certainly not least (seriously, this is one of the most important parts) is adjusting your settings for apps and ads. Apps and ads can potentially collect tons of information on you, and unless you change your settings they are free to do so without you even knowing about it. Ads, as of this posting, cannot use your name or likeness in any of their promotions, but that could always change in the future. Be sure to change this setting so that no one can do it without your permission. Also, if you don’t want ads to track your likes or other personal information, you can adjust that here as well. Businesses can also collect information from websites you visit on a daily basis, even if you aren’t logged into Facebook. You can opt out of this by contacting the Digital Advertising Alliance in the USA, the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada, or the European Digital Advertising Alliance.
The App settings are also immensely important because without changing these apps can collect tons of information about you and share it with others. You can individually go through each app you have enabled through Facebook and adjust their individual privacy settings. You can also adjust plugins that let you use Facebook and other games and apps on the web. There is even an option that determines whether you can play games anonymously or not.
The most important App setting, though, is the Apps Others Use setting. In case you didn’t know, if your friends play any games or use any apps, those apps can see a ton of your profile information without you even being a part of the app. This setting lets you determine exactly what these apps can see if you let them see anything at all. That’s why it is the most important setting in this whole section.
To Sum Up…
This all may seem like a lot, but it is actually a relatively short process to maximize your Facebook security settings. All it takes is a little time and attention to stop anonymous developers and businesses from collecting your private information.
with increasing use of Facebook, we really should consider these new security settings by Facebook, in order to protect our profile.