Improve Security: 5 Ways to Protect Your Privacy on Facebook

Recently, Facebook has been under a lot of scrutiny due to the scandal on data exploitation with a controversial data breach that may have involved Russia and political data. Facebook makes revenue off data collection of its users, by selling it back to advertisers. However, there has not been much control on whether third party businesses may acquire that information from buyers. With all that is going on, is Facebook safe to use? If you still want to use this social media platform—good news; you can improve your security through the following 5 ways.

1. Discover Connected Apps with Facebook

How are third party apps collecting personalized information? First, explore your “settings” (click the downward arrow located on the upper right corner near your name and photo). Click on the “Apps and Websites” tab to discover all the apps that are associated with your account. The “Active” tab means your Facebook login was used to login to these apps. As a result, these apps and websites can request information that you decide to share with them, granting permission for data access. Also, If you see any apps that are unfamiliar or untrustworthy, audit the apps by editing their privacy settings or remove them.

2. Ad Blocker

Improve your privacy by prohibiting ads to load or appear. An ad blocker is an add-on that can be installed to your internet browser on computers and mobile devices. With mobile ads, some may be comprised of malware, which can reach your data. With websites, not all have complete control on ads that surface on their sites and may include harmful code that can show up on their ad networks. Thus, utilize ad blocker to effectively remove ads on Facebook.

3. Set Privacy on Albums, Photos, and Posts

We all love to share on Facebook. While you may have already set a privacy setting on who gets to see your photos and posts, albums are automatically shared with “everyone” once created. Remember, you must manually update each album to a private or changed setting.

4. Hide Your Profile from Google

Is it possible that online users or apps have discovered your profile through Google or other search engines? Boost your privacy by hiding your Facebook profile from Google search.  Go through “Settings” and click on the Privacy tab. Check if you have “yes” or “no” checked for the option stating, “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?”. Selecting “no” will allow search engines to stop linking to your profile over time.

5. Start Using Incognito Mode

Lastly, recognize that internet browsers provide easy ways to improve privacy. Chrome provides incognito mode, which is a private browsing feature. Chrome, Firefox, and Safari have their own special combination of keys to be pressed (Chrome example: Shift+Ctrl+N for PC) that will open up incognito mode (displayed above). Then, you will see the browser will not save browsing history, cookies and site data, and information entered in forms. Plus, Facebook features a new extension called Facebook Container Extension, which automatically launches Facebook in incognito mode or a private browsing window.

Overall, the best way to protect yourself from Facebook is to not have a profile. On the other hand, Facebook provides a way to communicate with family and friends and is an excellent platform for sharing information. To safely and effectively use Facebook, update your privacy and security settings as needed. Remember, the more you share, the more people know!

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