Step-by-step Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings

I've been asked a couple of times about Facebook privacy settings since it has been all that the world has talked about for the last couple of weeks. Facebook has announced that they will upgrade the privacy settings and make it easier for the average user to increase their privacy settings. That being said, for those who don't yet know, here is a synopsis of the current system and the step-by-step changes to the settings that I would recommend.

NOTE: I generally will use the term 'Friends Only' or stricter throughout. By stricter, I mean to use 'Customize' and pick your friends that you would like to grant privileges to that particular information.



- Under 'Personal Information and Posts'. Each of these should be set to 'Friends Only' or stricter. Do not forget to click on 'Edit Settings' under 'Photo Albums' and adjust all of them to 'Friends Only'

- Under 'Contact Information'. For the most part I would put each of these to 'Friends Only' or stricter as well. However, I can see why some like having 'Add me as a friend' and 'Send me a message' as 'Everyone' seeing if those are 'Friends Only' you will not be getting any new friend requests outside of people that you request. If that is what you would like, that is completely your prerogative (yeah, that's right...it's Bobby Brown). That being said, my 'Add me as a friend' is set as 'Friends of friends' and 'Send me a message' is 'Friends only' or stricter.

- Under 'Friends, Tags and Connections'. Easy - all should be 'Friends Only' or stricter.

- Under 'Search'. Facebook Search Results should be 'Friends Only' or stricter. 'Public Search Results' should be UNCHECKED next to 'Allow' (no Google searching allowed!)

- Under 'Application and Settings'. You should review the applications and Web sites that you are allowing Facebook to share information and remove any that you don't use.

Further Changes Here:
∙ 'What your friends can share about you' - click 'Edit Settings' and make sure NOTHING is checked.
∙ 'Activity on Applications and Games Dashboards' - 'Friends Only' or stricter'.
∙ 'Instant Personalization Pilot Program' - click 'Edit Settings' and UNCHECK 'Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites.'

Upon completion, you will notice two things - Facbeook likes to set the defaults to allow your information to be made available to the public for just about everything and they spell Web site wrong in a whole lot of places.

To be sure that you completed this correctly - go to http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/ and follow the instructions. You should be listed as 'Secured' across the board.



And finally, here is the so-so looking trailer to Star Wars: The Old Republic in HD.