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Maybe you think your Facebook is already as secure as possible or maybe you've never given the matter much thought.
But with the many changes and upgrades Facebook has recently undergone it is worth having a look at whether your profile is vulnerable.
Here are 10 tips to help you make your account safe and secure.
1. See what your profile looks like to the public and individual friends
This clever function allows you to check what your Facebook profile looks like to people who are not friends and also individuals who are friends. To use this function, go to your profile and select View As from the menu button on the bottom right corner of your cover photo.
2. Make sure your contact details are hidden
Many people are shocked to discover that contact details they entered into Facebook years ago are available for all to see. Go to the Edit profile tab, then click on Contact and basic information and double check that your contacts details are only available to those you want to see it.
3. When you share a post you can decide who sees it
Every time you post something to Facebook you can decide who you would like to have access to the post. You can select your sharing options for all your posts by clicking on the little lock icon on the top right-hand corner of your profile > Who can see my stuff and deciding between the options available.
If you would like to determine the privacy setting for a particular post, click on the drop down arrow next to the date stamp on the post. You can even go as far as choosing that the post be hidden from an individual person.
4. Hide your photo albums
If you have certain photo albums or pictures you don't want people seeing, but you don't feel like deleting them completely, you can hide them so only you can see them. (This is also a great way to store photos and keep them organised without putting them on display).
Go to your profile, click on Photos, then Albums and use the audience selector tool under each album to control who can see your album. Remember, the two little people icon means that it can only be seen by your friends, the globe icon means it's public and a padlock means only you can see it.
5. Control what other people post about or of you
If you’ve already determined your general privacy settings for own account but worry about pictures and posts you’re being tagged in, you can do the following.
In order to review other people’s posts before they show up on your timeline go to Settings (under the little drop down arrow on the far left of your screen) then See more settings > Timeline and tagging and then activate the setting which allows you to review things before they are posted to your timeline.
The best you can do for photos which you’ve been tagged in by others is opt to Remove tag which you can find by clicking on Options which appears at the bottom of the photograph.
6. Hide your list of friends
If for some reason you don't want people seeing who you're friends with you can hide the list altogether. Go to your friends list (click Friends just below the cover photo on your profile page), click the pen icon on the right and then Edit privacy.
7. Hide your relationship status (or any other aspect of your bio)
On the home page, go to the Edit profile tab (see photo above). Hover your mouse over the part of your profile you want to edit and click on the audience selector icon which appears on the far right. Once you’ve clicked on it you will be allowed to change it and therefore control who sees that part of your biography.
8. Block people from being able to contact you
Go to their profile page, click on the three dots to the far right and select Block.
9. Get alerted every time a login attempt is made for your account
Facebook login alerts can be enabled under Security settings (under the drop down arrow on the far right on the top menu, choose Settings > Security). You can get an alert when anyone logs into your account from a new device or browser and also choose how you'd like to receive the alert.
10. Hide yourselves from complete strangers
If you want to make sure that you people who don’t know you at all and with whom you have no mutual friends cannot find you, this is what you do: go to settings (as above), then Privacy and under the Who can send you friend requests field, select Friends of friends if you only want others with mutual friends to be able to send you friend requests. This trick will also help you to steer clear of annoying spam friend requests.
Sources: time.com, techinsider.io
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