Category Archives: Facebook Secrets

Add Sections, Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Facebook page likes, Facebook Photo Privacy Settings, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks

Facebook Privacy Settings – Part 4 What can or can’t be private

August 9, 2013 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

We’ve covered a lot this week, haven’t we? The final step is outlining what you can control and what you can’t. Before we begin, take a look at this:

Photo of Facebook Privacy Control 1 — **It looks like anything can be seen by anyone, right?**

Take this as a warning. As far as actions go, even if you remove something from your timeline, it still might be seen elsewhere on Facebook. Let’s just say that Facebook’s privacy control is full of holes. Therefore, expect the worst. If you feel that something you’re about to do is risky, don’t do it.

Things you can control completely, more or less:

1. Photos you post yourself that are NOT profile pic thumbnails or timeline cover photos. Every other photo can be limited to you or to some friends or to everyone on Facebook. Profile pic thumbnails and timeline covers are PUBLIC. Anyone who you have not blocked can see them.

2. Videos that you post. You can set the privacy for any video when you post it or after the fact. The key word is POST. If you share something, you cannot control who sees it.

3. Notes that you post. Again, you can set the privacy when you post the note or afterwards.

4. Status updates. The last thing you can control, more or less completely, are your status updates.

5. Likes/Interests. By likes we mean pages that you like, musicians, movies, books that you like, etc. You can hide some or all of them. We’ve written many posts on this explaining how to do it, how to get them back and so on. Use the search box on any page to bring up the instructional posts on this topic.

Get used to using this box when you are posting anything on Facebook:

Facebook Privacy Control 2 — **Use this box for everything you post on Facebook.**

Things you post that you cannot control using privacy settings:

1. Timeline cover photos. These photos, the big image behind your profile pic, are PUBLIC. Anyone who can see your profile, even if you’ve hidden everything else, can still see this picture. There is nothing you can do about it so be careful what you post here.

2. Profile thumbnail pics. Your profile photo can be controlled via the privacy dialogue pictured above, either when you post it or afterwards. The thumbnail, the smaller photo that everyone sees, is PUBLIC. Remember that. Use our guide to protect your profile photo thumbnail: Profile Photo Trick

3. Likes and comments on things that someone else posted. This is the most confusing part of Facebook, right? Everyone seems to have a problem with this. If you didn’t post it, it’s out of your control. If you comment, like or share something that someone else posted, everything is controlled by the original poster’s privacy settings. You cannot hide that fact that you like someone’s photo. They will know it, their friends will know it, your friends will know it….well, you get the point. Once you step out of the relative safety zone of your own posts, you’re lost in the void that is Facebook. Be careful.

4. Mutual friends. While you can hide your full list of friends from your other friends, you cannot hide any mutual friends.

5. Some photos. Read 1 and 2 again, just to be sure.

6. The ‘About’ you box on your Facebook profile. You can hide some things about yourself, not everything. We’ve done post on this in the past but we’ll do another update soon. Read this post, Facebook – Get your Likes Back , to figure out how to hide or unhide your likes/interests.

Here’s something you should see, brought to you by Facebook:

Photo of Facebook Sections Warning — **Everything looks good until you read the very last line at the bottom.**

See the greyed out sections at the top? You can’t hide those sections, at least not everything in them. Check or uncheck the other sections, according to your preferences. After you do that, read the line at the bottom. We’ve copied it here, just in case you miss it:

“If you hide a section, individual stories can still appear on your Timeline, in News Feed and elsewhere on Facebook”.

In other words, you can’t really hide very much of your activity on Facebook. You should look at your actions on Facebook in two different streams; things that you post and things that you do. As we’ve said above, you can hide most of the things you post. As far as the things that you do (liking something, commenting on something, sharing something), you cannot hide any part of it. Even if you think you can, Facebook tells you that it might appear ‘elsewhere on Facebook’.

Wow, it’s been a long week for us. Lots of research and some wordy but, hopefully, informative articles too. Please comment, ask questions, yell, scream or just say hi in the comment box at the bottom. We’re here to help, don’t forget that.

Thanks for reading!

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Facebook, Facebook Photo Privacy Settings, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Keep Safe Online, Layered Privacy, Security

Facebook Privacy Settings – Part 3 Profle Photo Trick

August 8, 2013 Computers Made Simple 1 Comment

Facebook week continues here on Computers Made Simple. In our last two posts we’ve shown you the ins and outs of posting something and setting the privacy limits for it, then we described the various photo albums and their limitations. Today we’re describing how to adjust privacy for your profile photo.

Profile Photo Trick – As we told you here: Facebook Photos and Albums , some Facebook albums have different privacy settings than others. One album that we are concerned about is the Profile Pictures album. Your profile photo is made up of two parts, the thumbnail and the main photo. Everyone can see the thumbnail, remember that. You choose who can see the full photo. Here’s how to have a profile pic that doesn’t reveal too much.

1. Before we begin, remember that when you upload a new profile photo, it is set to ‘Public’ by default. You have to change that setting to ‘Friends Only’. The thumbnail will remain public but the photo itself can be made private. We’ll show you how.

The first time you change your profile photo, Facebook tells you that the photo is Public…but you can change that.

2. Click on your profile photo up on the top left of any Facebook page. This brings up your Timeline. Next, hover your mouse on the photo and choose ‘Edit profile picture’.

Hover and choose Edit Profile Picture.

3. We strongly suggest that you choose ‘Upload Photo’ or ‘Take Photo’ (you can only use this if you have a webcam attached to your computer.) The reason we want you to use a new photo is that you can edit the thumbnail much better with a new pic. If you use one of your old profile photos, this trick doesn’t work quite the same way.

Upload Photo or Take photo, both will work for this.

4. Choose the photo you want to use. This is the one we chose for this post:

An ex-sports star with his fleet of cars. Note that you can see his face in this full profile pic.

5. Facebook uploads the photo. Initially, this is what we saw when we uploaded this photo:

His face is still visible. We’ll fix that.

6. Hover over the photo again and choose ‘Edit thumbnail’:

We want to Edit thumbnail.

7. When the Edit Thumbnail dialogue comes up, drag the photo around until you can’t see or can’t recognize the person (you) in the photo:

Drag the small image around until you can’t be seen. Do NOT choose Scale to Fit.

TIP: If you choose ‘Scale to Fit’, Facebook simply makes a very tiny copy of the full photo and uses that as the thumbnail. In some cases this might be fine but make sure the thumbnail doesn’t reveal too much.

8. OK, we’re almost done. The new photo is set to Public, right? We want to change that. Click on the thumbnail and the full photo comes up. On the right, there are two Edit buttons. Both do the same thing so it doesn’t matter which one you click.

Two edit buttons, choose either one.

9. We prefer to choose Friends for the privacy setting. That’s up to you but we don’t advise you to leave it set to Public.

Friends, right? Better than Public unless you’re trying to attract strangers.

Yes, there are quite a few steps to this but we think it’s worth it. If you’ve got kids who are on Facebook, share this trick with them. Unless they are desperately seeking friends who are complete strangers, maybe it’s better to hide their face. Are we taking this search for privacy a bit too far? We don’t think so. If you had any idea of what some people reveal to strangers, you’d probably agree with us. Click on some Facepiles and see what turns up. You’d be shocked.

Thanks for reading! Questions, comments and problems are always welcome. Use the comment form below or Like us on Facebook: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks

Facebook Privacy Settings – Updated, Part 1

August 6, 2013 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

This is Facebook week at Computers Made Simple. We’re going to highlight the various privacy settings that are available to you on Facebook. Stick around and bookmark this page or, better yet, Like us on Facebook to get immediate updates on our posts. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook This is Part 1 of the series.

Posting Photos or Photo Albums.

When you post a photo or a whole album, Facebook uses your default privacy settings. What are those settings? Well, they are always the same settings that you used the last time you posted a photo or an album. Let’s say that you haven’t ever adjusted your privacy settings. In that case, Facebook assumes that you want everything you post to be public, available to anyone who happens to visit your profile, no matter if they are a friend or a complete stranger. Read that again if you want.

At this point you are faced with a fork in the privacy road. From now on, you will know how to change the privacy settings for everything you post. What about the things you have posted previously? Well, unfortunately, you’ll have to go back and change the settings for everything that you don’t want the public to see. There is no quick and easy ‘Press This’ button to change those privacy settings. Sorry!

Let’s make a new album and set the privacy to Friends Only.

1. From any page on Facebook, click the Post button if you have the new Facebook look or scroll to the top and click on the Add Photos/Video button.

Photo of Add Photo Album to Facebook 1 — **Click Add Photos/Video then Create Photo Album.**

We’re making a new album so click on Create Photo Album. Read this:

TIP: Facebook has changed its privacy settings for photos that you post to your Timeline. We would strongly suggest that you ONLY put photos in separate albums, NOT simply to your Timeline. We will explain why in a later post.

2. Choose your photos from a folder on your computer. Usually the default location is Downloads, depending on which browser you use. We use Chrome and you should be using Chrome too.

Photo of Add Photo Album to Facebook 2 — **The ones with the blue frame are ready, use the CTRL key to select more than one photo.**

3. As the photos are uploading, look down to the bottom of the page, just to the left of ‘Post photos’. There will be a gear icon there. This is where you change the privacy settings for you new album.

Photo of Add Photo Album to Facebook 3 — **We had our settings to Custom but we will change them to Friends.**

4. Click on the word that is there. If you haven’t changed this setting in the past, it should read Public. That’s not what we want.

Photo of Add Photo Album to Facebook 4 — **Here are your selections for privacy for this album. We suggest Friends but it’s up to you.**

5. The setting that you choose here will be your current default setting. From now on, whatever you post, even if you just update your status, this setting will control who can see that post or update.

TIP: You can only control the privacy for things that you post. If you comment, like,or share on anything that you didn’t put up on Facebook, everything will be controlled by the privacy settings of the original poster. Please remember that. If you like a friend’s photo, you can only unlike it, you can’t hide the fact that you liked it.

OK, so this is about posting an album. Next time we’ll describe how to change the privacy settings for your old photo albums. That will be Part 2.

Thanks for reading!

Facebook, Facebook page likes, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Facebook Likes

Facebook – Get your Likes back

August 5, 2013 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

Here’s a short post on getting your Facebook Likes back. We’ll show you how to sort out the different sections that appear when someone checks out your profile.

1. Head to your own Timeline and look for the words ‘Update Info’.

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 1 — **Click on Update Info.**

2. Once you click Update Info, look over on the right for the icon of a pencil.

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 2 — **The word Edit appears when you hover over the icon. Click it.**

3. Even if you don’t want to edit anything, click the icon and you’ll get this menu. Click ‘Edit Sections’ when you see it:

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 3 — **Click Edit Sections.**

4. Up pops a list of all of the sections that you can choose to show or hide. Notice that three sections can’t be hidden: About, Photos and Friends are all permanent. You can, however, hide parts of these sections as we’ve told you before. You can hide your full Friend list, for instance, but you cannot hide any mutual friends that you might have with someone who sees your profile.

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 4 — **Pick the ones you want to show or hide.**

5. Finally, don’t forget to click Save to make your changes take effect.

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 5 — **Click Save and you’re done.**

That’s it. Your list will vary from ours, of course. The main sections will be the same but you won’t have Spotify, probably, but you might have ones that are not on our list.

Thanks for reading! Hey, Like our Facebook page and we’ll like you! Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook.

Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hidden Messages

Facebook’s Hidden Message Box

July 26, 2013 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

We’re quite sure that everyone knows how to send and receive messages on Facebook. Did you know that your Facebook account has two inboxes? We didn’t until yesterday. Here’s the scoop on Facebook’s hidden message box.

When you receive a message from a Facebook friend, you get a notification and you can click the message icon on the top row of any Facebook page to read it. When you reply or comment on something on a stranger’s page, sometimes you get messages from complete strangers. Where do those messages go? It turns out that Facebook, just like any other email service, plunks those messages into your Facebook junk mail folder. Say what? A Facebook junk mail folder? You read that right. Here’s how to find it.

1. Start by checking your regular inbox, the one that’s actually called Inbox:

Photo of Facebook Hidden Inbox 1 — **Click on the message icon at the top of any Facebook Page.**

2. Move your mouse just a bit to the right of the word Inbox and click on Other. Yes, it looks like it’s hidden but it’s not:

Photo of Facebook Hidden Inbox 2 — **Click Other to access your hidden inbox.**

3. If you haven’t accessed this area of Facebook before, here is the warning message that you will see:

Photo of Facebook Hidden Inbox 3 — **This explains everything!**

Now, you may have some messages here or you might not. It depends on how active you are on Facebook. One of our accounts had over 30 messages, another account had only 6. The interesting this is that some messages are complete spam but some were from real Facebook users who had either replied to a comment we made and wanted more info or who were offering us more information on something we had asked in a comment.

WARNING! Please remember this: Once you send a message to a stranger or respond to a message that a stranger sent to you, your whole profile opens up to them, just as if they aren’t a stranger anymore. Read that again. When you get a message in this ‘junk’ box, sometimes that message is a phishing expedition, an attempt to see more of your profile than you would normally allow a stranger to see. Who would do this? Spammers for sure but stalkers send messages on Facebook, too. Don’t let your guard down. Be careful when you send a message or reply to a message from someone you don’t know, someone who is not a Facebook friend.

While you’re at it, why not Like our Facebook page? Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

As always, thanks for reading!

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