Facebook, this website has been one of my favourite place to hangout. ;) And I refresh my Facebook home every minutes to get new updates and stories of my FB friends. It’s a better option to get updates and update myself to my friends. Millions of people are here with so many interests and ideas. It’s good to be in such network where people share ideas and information but with so many people with different background around you, there are a lot of ways you put yourself in severe situation. So the question arises – ‘Are you really safe on Facebook?’ I suggest you all my dear friends, brothers and sisters to take a few precautions to make your Facebook experience much better with fun. :)

Well here are some safety tips and instructions to adjust your privacy settings of your Facebook account. Facebook gives full control over the information, photos, videos, notes and posts you share with your FB friends. So it’s up to you how you share your information. You have to make good use of privacy settings to restrict the information you share. You can select to allow information to be viewed by only you, friends only, friends of friends, everyone or you can select specific people to show or hide your information.

Okay! Now let’s have a quick view over your Facebook Privacy Settings. Hope this will help you to assort good things from the bad ones. :)

‘Privacy Settings’ link can be found under ‘Account’ menu of top right side of your Facebook page. Or you can follow this link -> http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy

Facebook’s privacy settings give you the power to decide what and how much you share.

You will see a screen as shown in snapshot below after you click on Privacy Settings link. I have described the settings one by one below.

Connecting on Facebook:
This section will give you control over how people can find you and connect with you. I suggest you to make visible everything here to friends only except ‘Search for you on Facebook’ and ‘Send you friend requests’. You can set these two options to be visible to everyone as this is used to help your friends and family to connect with you.

Sharing on Facebook:
The visibility of content you post and share such as status, links, photos, videos, notes etc. can be customized here. Choose any option from the list that Facebook already has or click on ‘Customise settings’ to select your own. In this section you can control the things you share, things your friends share like tagged photos and videos and your contact information. It is recommended that set everything here visible to friends only. You can set permission for each photo album you create by clicking on ‘Edit album privacy’ link. Set your contact information like telephone/mobile and IM addresses visible to you only.

Apps and websites:
Here you can control the information shared with websites and applications. You can view your apps and remove unwanted apps you used before. You can also edit settings for public search of your profile through this section.

Block lists:
I wish not to use this feature. But situation may come when you have to block people to interact with you or to see your information. In that case you can use this section to avoid specific people to interact with you.

Sections 1, 2, 3 and 4 described above are the features provided by Facebook and I hope this will be helpful for you to customize privacy settings of your profile. Besides this, there are some other points that you have to keep in mind. What if you set everything visible to your friends only but someone who is not in your list gains control over one of your friends FB account and retrieves all your information. So important point is that you have to decide what information is shared through your profile.

It is better to avoid filling in all your personal information. Accept friend requests only if they are known to you in real world. Monitor your posts, photos and videos you are tagged in and don’t hesitate to remove tags if you don’t think that those posts must be visible in your profile. Be careful when you post status, notes, photos or videos. Avoid posting information about your upcoming plans, vacation trips, etc. Avoid using and giving access to lots of Facebook applications. Not all apps are good and useful. Some applications are intended to steal your private information and to send spams using your profile account.

If you find any inappropriate posts then remove them immediately. If you find someone harassing you, sending you nasty messages and making you feel uneasy, don’t hesitate to remove them from your friend list or it’s even better to block them. One last advice, don’t use Facebook if you are under 13. :P