The steps required to see the Matrix Easter Egg are simple:

• Edit a post on your blog
• Go down to revisions and compare a revision with itself
• Enjoy the show

Via: Adam Colon

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 Why Force HTTPS in Chrome?

HTTPS encryption’s purpose is to provide security, confidentiality, and integrity while browsing. Your information remains confidential from prying eyes because only your browser and the server can decrypt the traffic. You’re used to seeing HTTPS when shopping online or using your bank’s online portal. However, many sites with which you send personal information do not encrypt their communication between their servers and your browser. While you may intend to share something, a photo, a status update, or an email, you may unintentionally be sharing other information when you don’t force HTTPS in Chrome. It’s the difference between someone viewing your profile and taking control of your keyboard.

Sniffing attacks when using public hotspots are becoming more and more prevalent thanks to simple to use tools like WireShark, HTTPSniffer, and FireSheep enables mouse-click hacking for sites like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and others. It should also be noted that sites force HTTPS in Chrome (or any other browser) during login. Web apps that use HTTPS for login/authentication protect your password, but if they use regular HTTP after you log in, they’re not protecting your privacy or your temporary identity.

Force HTTPS in Chrome with a startup parameter

Recent releases of Chrome support typing chrome://net-internals/ into your address bar, and then include HSTS menu item. HSTS is HTTPS Strict Transport Security: a way for sites to elect to always use HTTPS.  HSTS is supported in Google Chrome, Firefox 4, and the popular NoScript Firefox extension and a few popular sites use it (See http://dev.chromium.org/sts for more info). Using this setting you can now force HTTPS for any domain you want, and even “pin” that domain so that only a more trusted subset of CAs are permitted to identify that domain.  The downside is that if you force a domain that does not have SSL at all you won’t be able to get to the site.

Force HTTPS in Chrome with KB SSL Enforcer extension

This extension will force HTTPS in Chrome for websites that support it as much as currently possible in Chrome. It is not completely secure against the infamous Firesheep, but it does minimize the risk greatly. Due to Chrome limitations KB SSL Enforcer redirects while the page is loading. This can give a quick flicker of the unencrypted page, but it redirects you as fast as possible. See the details section on the Chrome Web Store for details on complete enforcement and when this will be possible.

Download: KB SSL Enforcer

Use HTTP extension to Force HTTPS in Chrome

Use HTTP will forces defined sites to use HTTPS instead of HTTP. It comes preloaded with two defined sites: Facebook and Twitter. Like the previous extension the initial request is sent to site not using HTTPS.

Download Use HTTPS

•  Download Chrome
•  Chrome Web Store
•  YouTube Channel
•  Support
• 50 Web Tools for the Paranoid or Security Conscious
• Force HTTPS in Facebook

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Facebook Timeline Privacy Settings and Managing Open Graph App Posts

I recently wrote about how the new Frictionless Sharing feature of Facebook’s latest Open Graph changes will allow 3rd party apps to post for you. In short this change will destroy the value of sharing on Facebook. Just prior to the f8 announcement many people began seeing the new Facebook Timeline appear. Sadly, in typical Facebook fashion, many of the privacy settings aren’t opt-in. They’re on by default. I recommend you learn how to take control of your Facebook Timeline Privacy settings, check my previous article on how to do that.

With the new Open Graph apps that have just launched, and the implementation of Frictionless Sharing, if you’re not careful you’re about to start spamming your Timeline and you’re friends will see all the actions your taking on the web appear in the Ticker. If Facebook’s algorithms thing it’s interesting enough they’ll start displaying in the News Feed. If you don’t configure your Timeline Privacy Settings for these apps they’ll start popping up all over.

Timeline Privacy Settings for Apps – Set to Only Me

Anytime you signup and start using one of these apps you’re going to be given a choice of how sharing takes place. By default it’s going to want you to share it with everyone, but if you remember Farmville being spammed all over then you certainly don’t want to do that. You can choose public, friends, all the normal Timeline Privacy Settings choices. Of course if you think your friends are interested in the app and all the information it’s about to spew out at them you can set it to public, or friends, or whatever. Personally, I say go the non-jerk route and set it to Only Me.

Change Timeline Privacy Settings for apps you’ve already installed

If you’ve already installed an app but want to change the Timeline Privacy Settings for it so that it doesn’t send information to your friends Ticker or News Feed simply click the drop down arrow next to your name and select ‘Account Settings’. On that page select “Apps”. From here you can adjust the settings for any Apps you want to change by clicking ‘Edit’. Each app will have a setting titled ‘Post to Facebook as me’, simply click the Remove button.

You’ll still see your activity in your Timeline, but you won’t be spamming your friends with what you’re doing.

Related posts:

1. Facebook Timeline Privacy: How To Take Control
2. Facebook Privacy: FTC Requires Settings To Be Opt-In
3. Disable Facebook Timeline: How to

Frictionless Sharing Launches with 60 Partners

At least 60 new partners are already using Open Graph and Facebook’s new Frictionless Sharing; Pinterest, LivingSocial, eBay, Digg, Foursquare, Ticket Master, RunKeeper, Yahoo!, TripAdvisor and more. Their all listed over on Facebook’s Timeline apps page. So all these apps are about to assault your Timeline just like how Social Graph currently works with Spotify. The point of Frictionless Sharing is that these new apps will broadcast what they’re doing and inject it into users timelines.  In short this means that when you use these apps they’ll be posting what you do all over Facebook. Soon you will start seeing what your friends are doing in greater detail. Expect to see things like “Joe just booked a vacation through TripAdvisor!” and “Pierce is watching Scrubs on Hulu.” Facebook is providing “verbs” in Open Graph Frictionless Sharing so third parties can more accurately describe what you’re doing online. Facebook’s take is that “adding an app to your timeline lets you express who you are through the things you do — your runs, playlists, films, trips, and more.”, to me it’s obvious it’s just more branding/advertising on your stream. (yes, I know Facebook is free)

Frictionless Sharing Will Make it Hard to AVOID these Apps

Here’s the kicker… as more people, and there’s near a billion people on Facebook, start using these apps what they’ll be “sharing” isn’t the link to the story, but a link INTO the app. Here’s how it’ll work. You’ll see that Mary posted what appears to be a fascinating article from The Guardian. However, it’s not a link to the article, it’s a link into the Guardian “app” and you have to allow the app permissions if you want to read the article.

Know what that means? That all YOUR friends will see that YOU read it too. That my friends is Frictionless Sharing. Facebook, the platform that made sharing so easy my mom could do it is about to ruin sharing for everyone.

Facebooks Frictionless Sharing ruins the last thing Facebook is good at

Think Facebook had questionable privacy policies before? So many unsuspecting users are going to be clicking through these things, and pretty soon their friends will be clicking through these things. What will be left is nothing but a bunch of generic messages splashed out there by apps. Instead knowing that John INTENDED to share a link because he thought the article had value, the app will do it for every article he reads. The point of sharing will become “pointless” as every app becomes the new Farmville… sharing crap out to your friends non-stop. The real value for users AND content creators is that Facebook users sharing something gave it the value of a word-of-mouth advertising; instead it’s going to become all generic. Sadly, this lessens the value for advertisers AND the consumers of the content.

If you’re brave you can find all the apps listed here. If you hate Timeline already you can find out how to clean up your old content here. Last but not least, if you’re already freaked out about Timeline privacy go here to learn how to get it under control. Or…. you could decide that this is really it and come join me over on Google+.

Related posts:

1. Timeline Privacy Settings: Manage Open Graph App Posts
2. Disable Facebook Timeline: How to
3. How To: Enable Facebook Timeline Profile and What It Looks Like

On their first visit, visitors will get a censored experience.

• Words longer than five characters will be blacked out.
• A “Censored” corner badge will appear at the top of your page.

SEO Friendly Protest against SOPA

During development, CloudFlare consulted with search engine crawl and rankings teams to ensure the way the blackout displays doesn’t negatively impact search engine optimization (SEO). The blackout bars are spans, and we avoid blacking out links, since hiding links on a background of the same color is a major no-no. Also, the links added to the page are marked with rel=”nofollow” to avoid passing any ranking. Because of CloudFlare’s scale, they regularly work with crawl and rankings teams at major search engines, so they were able to design the app to ensure that in doing good you don’t end up doing harm to your site.

Schedule

This app is scheduled to be available for one month. However, they will monitor the legislative changes and change the schedule as necessary.

Clear Message, Easy Advocacy against SOPA

Clicking a blacked out word, or the corner badge, opens an in-page window explaining that United States legislation (SOPA and PIPA) under consideration threatens freedom.

From the window, visitors may:

• tweet about your support for stopping censorship, including your Twitter handle, optionally (if no Twitter handle, your site URL is included)
• read more about SOPA & PIPA
• get their U.S. Senators’ phone numbers to register their concern directly (outside the U.S.? Still useful to register your concern)

Closing the window leaves your site ready for normal viewing. The corner badge remains, and will trigger the in-page window again if clicked. This experience will only occur on a single visit, based on a cookie set. (The link above is specially coded so you can test the first-run experience here repeatedly.)

Setup for CloudFlare Sites

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3. How To: Remove Facebook, Twitter, or Google Permissions

Search plus your world unleashed

Google’s latest rollout (if you don’t see it yet you will soon) introduces three new features: Personal Results, Profiles in Search, and People and Pages. Together, these features combine to create Search plus Your World. Search plus your world integrates personalized search results with standard search results. When in personal mode you’ll see your content as well as content shared with you on Google+, even if it’s not a public post. This includes photos, Google+ posts and shared links. Personal mode doesn’t eliminate the normal web search results but rather augments the existing results with social results relevant to you.

What’s really slick is that Google isn’t forcing personal results down our throats (a clever move). Whenever you perform a query at the top of the page where you usually see  the number of search results, you’ll now see the number of  personal results as well as the overall global results. You then have a toggle across the top of the page allow you to view only the personalized results, or the global results. This simple toggle means you can get results fine tuned to your profile as well as results from across the web with the toggle of a button.

Search plus your world reveals Google+ strategy?

Since it’s inception Google+ has been claimed to be a Facebook clone, or a Facebook killer, depending on who you talked to. One Google employee decried it a “pathetic afterthought”. The unveiling of search plus your world shows that Google has had a plan all along, Google+ is a part of that plan, and the plan has always been about one thing: search. When asked if Google+ would replace blogging I tried to outline that unlike Facebook, Google isn’t concerned with being THE central hub that you visit. While it may appear they’re attempting to clone Facebook in a social arms race that’s not really the case. Google had held to their mission statement “to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Their business model is targeted advertising, this is accomplished when you search. Google+ is just one more way to do that.

The three three new features announced today are:

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;
2. Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and,
3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

Clearly, this is how Google+ fits into Search plus you world and shows how Google envisions social networking integrating into their business model. Unlike Facebook, who holds user data in a walled garden, Google wants it all out there… so they can index it, make it searchable, and target ads towards your results.

Google+ profiles will begin displaying inSearch plus your world results right along side content from around the web. The net benefit to the end user is that Google+ profiles they have within their circles will be easy to identify against someone else with the same name. An important thing to note is that while Google+ profile results display, they are NOT limited to Google+ content! The profile link will take you to the persons Google+ profile, but the snippet displayed shows the most relevant content for that person regardless of it being on Google+ or not. An important thing to note here is that by adding social content to your Google+ profile you can get additional content to display in Google search results. Ah… so while it’s not all about content from Google+, Google+ profiles are how you identify what is your content. If you want your blog, Twitter feed, Tublr, or whatever to be highlighted in Google searches for you then you better add them to your Google+ profile!

Search plus your world also begin the rollout of People and Pages information in your search results. According to Google, ”Starting today, if you search for a topic like [music] or [baseball], you might see prominent people who frequently discuss this topic on Google+ appearing on the right-hand side of the results page. You can connect with them on Google+, strike up meaningful conversations and discover entire communities in a way that simply wasn’t possible before. ”  Google’s example of how this works is a search for “music,” which displays the Google+ pages for Britney Spears, Alicia Keys and Snoop Dogg in the right sidebar. Ok so this can bring back relevant information for a person or brand I may want to follow. The natural assumption here is that these will also be paid results. Again, we see how Google+ is folding into Google’s primary goal: search. It’s always been search, but now Google is providing brands not only a way to show you an ‘ad’, but that ad takes you to a Google+ profile/brand page where the content producers can interact with you.

Google claims to have set a high bar for Search plus Your World. “Since some of the information you’ll now find in search results, including Google+ posts and private photos, is already secured by SSL encryption on Google+, we have decided that the results page should also have the same level of security and privacy protection.” Basically, Google is implementing SSL on all searches for any user who is signed in to a Google profile. Oh… did I mention that all Google profiles have automatically become Google+ profiles? Integration baby.

After the privacy disaster of Buzz, Google is taking extra steps with careful UI choices on Search plus Your World. The new toggle on the upper right of the results page makes it simple to view your personalized results, or flip back to see an unpersonalized view of search results.

So how is Search plus Your World NOT like Facebook

In simplest terms it indicates the difference in their business models. Facebook is a social networking site. Google is a search engine and ad company. Google+ is simply an extension to their core business model of indexing the worlds data and providing relevant results (all why targeting advertising at you). Facebook of course makes its bread and butter off knowing as much about you as possible, and clearly Google needed an inroad into that type of data… hence Google+. However, Google+ isn’t the only thing Google does. YouTube, Blogger, Google Docs, Google Reader, etc… Google+ is the glue pulling all that together. Your social profile across all Google properties now have a singular home… Google+. Google+ however is not in the social networking business, they’re in the data business and Google+ is a method of joining all your different web interactions together. With the release of Search plus Your World we’re beginning to see how all if it ties together… and how it’s all related to the one thing Google has always been good at: search.

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OpenMobile Announces ‘Application Compatibility Layer’ for Android Apps

OpenMobile announced its Application Compatibility Layer (ACL) technology at CES, saying it will provide the ability for 300,000+ Android Apps to run on non-Android operating systems. They do so by leveraging Google’s runtime environment and Dalvik VM. In the video below you can see Android apps running on the Meego platform and claim that any Android application will be able to run. OpenMobile ACL currently has support for Intel, and Nokia, and Linux itself, but has announced plans to release similar versions for Bada, QNX, Symbian, WebOS and Windows.

Myriad Alien Dalvik host environment for Android Apps

Myriad Alien Dalvik also enables Android applications to operate on non-Android devices giving access to other OS’s Android apps and Apps stores to a much wider range of devices. They claim that developers won’t be required to modify the core software but will only have to repackage of the Android APK files. Android apps running under Alien Dalvik will run as if native on the new device.

Rise of the Android Apps

Unfortunately, you and I won’t be able to buy this software ourselves as it’s being targeted toward device manufacturers. With luck this will change sometime in the future. Regardless, if these two companies are successful, and the applications run at native speed, we’ll begin to see Android apps popping up everywhere. Developing Android apps will suddenly become much more profitable for developers as they can write for Android and have their Android apps run on ANY device. As the Android development environment grows, so too will the number of Android apps.

While I don’t think they’ll be able to control the primary OS, I have dreams of being able to run WidgetLocker on my laptop.

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Social Monkee review – How does it work?

Social Monkee was created to help you build extra back links via a simple form or through a browser extension. You simply input your data and you get 25 backlinks per submission! Social Monkee is intended to help your site increase its ranking by generating quality back links. The idea being the more quality back links you have the higher you’ll rank in search engine rankings.

Social Monkee review – How does it help?

Instead of needing to bookmark your site to any number of bookmark services to increase back links, simply submit it once to Social Monkee and it handles the work for you. All of these back links are driven on unique IP addresses, this should prevent them from being marked as spam. With Social Monkey you can create 25 backlinks my clicking a button. With a little work you can, submitting 1 article per day you an get 750 back links in one month; and that’s with the free package!  (25*30 = 750 backlinks a month)

Social Monkee – Paid version

Social Monkee offers a pay version that allows you to submit 3 three times per day, generating  9,000 BACKLINKS EVERY MONTH  (3*100*30 = 9000). There are two ways to get the premium service: a one time $47 fee, or by referring 12 new members to Social Monkee. Being able to simply generate 9,000 backlinks is worth $47 if for no other reason than your time is valuable and Social Monkee saves you the time and effort of creating them yourself, allowing you to instead focus on what’s really important to you: generating new, quality content. Only you can decide if you need the ability the ability to submit more than 1 time per day. Personally, I don’t… however, having a paid subscription provides the very valuable addition of reporting. Reporting allows you a simple way to confirm what sites your bookmarks/backlinks have been submitted to. The only other way to do this with out their paid reporting (as far as I know) is to use Bing webmaster tools (formerly Yahoo Site Explorer) to check your backlinks.

Sounds too good to be true!

When I first heard of Social Monkee through some SEO friends I thought it sounded to good to be true. Some research revealed that SocialMonkee launched in Jan 2011, and in two months had 25,000 users and an Alexa rank of over 3,000 (which it still maintains). The way Social Monkee protects it’s system is that they only allow 1 sign-up per IP address, preventing spammers from overrunning the system. If you try to create more than one account from the same IP, they’re going to block you.

The backlinks generated by Social Monkee are setup as do follow backlinks. Each backlink sits on a private network of more than 100 unique IP’s within the Social Monkee network. The Social Monkee network is comprised of social networking bookmark sites that reside on distinct C-class IPs; Some IPs are new and some resided on aged domains to maximize how the bookmarks are spread around when viewed by Search Engines.

So how do you use Social Monkee?

To use Social Monkee you either use their FireFox extension or submit your article via their website. At this time, there’s no Chrome extension which I find to be a downside. I have FireFox installed, but I find the lack of both FireFox AND Chrome extensions to be a bummer. Having said that, using the website is just as simple. When submitting the article you specify your title, description and anchor text. Social Monkee provides some real power here by providing the ability for each of these sections to be ‘spun’. At first this looks a little odd, but the ability for these sections to be spun means that you can create different titles, descriptions, and anchors. You just have to get the hand of their simple format when submitting. For instance, of your article is titled ‘My Article”, you would spin in (creating different titles to spread around) by entering {My Article|My greatest Article on this subject|New Article covering subject xyz}. Pretty simple… open bracket, title, pipe, title, pipe, title, close bracket.

I have only been using Social Monkee for about a week and I am seeing the backlinks start to show up.  I know some people who spend up $20 per site for this type of service. The ability to do it for free can save you a chunk of cash. The ONLY downside to the free service is the lack or reporting… and personally I find a one time fee of $47 to be worth it’s weight to obtain the reports (again, you can do it for free but the idea is to save you time – and your time is money).

I suggest giving SocialMonkee a try, there’s nothing to lose with the free version and you’ll soon be building quality backlinks to your site!

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Facebook Tracking and Privacy

Facebook tracks what you do online, even when you log out of Facebook. I reported back in September about how Facebook tracks you even when you’re not logged in. Facebook’s new Frictionless Sharing feature allows Facebook to track every website you visit; everything you do online… even when you’re not logged into Facebook. Nik Cubrilovic, who shows the code and describes how to replicate his findings states, “Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit. The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions.”

UPDATE: Check out my article on how to control Facebook Timeline Privacy and how to delete old Facebook content!

USA Today‘s Byron Acohido was able to compile the most complete picture to date of how the social network keeps tabs on its 800 million users.

Here is what Acohido learned:

• Facebook tracking doesn’t track everybody the same way. It uses different methods for members who have signed in and are using their accounts, members who are logged-off and non-members.
• The first time you arrive at any Facebook.com page, the company inserts cookies in your browser. If you sign up for an account, it inserts two types of cookies. If you don’t set up an account, it only inserts one of the two types.
• These cookies record every time you visit another website that uses a Facebook Like button or other Facebook plugin — which work together with the cookies to note the time, date and website being visited. Unique characteristics that identify your computer are also recorded via Facebook Tracking.
• Facebook tracking keeps logs that record your past 90 days of activity. It deletes entries older than 90 days.
• If you are logged into a Facebook account, your name, email address, friends and all of the other data in your Facebook profile is also recorded via Facebook tracking.

The images below, compiled from USA Today’s article on Facebook tracking paints a clear picture of how and what their doing with the user data:

Facebook told USA Today that Facebook tracking uses data collected via cookies to help improve security and its plugins and that it has no plans to change how it uses this data. However, it’s also applied for a patent on a technology that includes a method that correlates ads and tracking data. So how innocuous IS Facebook tracking? How Facebook is handling the data it collects through cookies has raised a debate about whether consumers should be able to opt out of  Facebook tracking by such methods.

Facebook tracking with Facebook Messenger

According to Facebook, Facebook Messenger is a trial application that lets you use Facebook without being on www.facebook.com. Using the new application you can chat and message friends on the site, see the latest status updates that would display in the ticker, and get notifications. The same privacy settings that you define on Facebook.com apply to Facebook messenger. The application provides both an Exit, and a Log Out. This is the important part that we’ll touch on in just a second.

Clearly, this is something that Facebook should have done long ago regardless of their intentions for Facebook tracking. It makes clear business sense. Many users leverage Facebook chat to communicate with friends. Using third party applications with Facebook chat is possible, that’s the only way I have ever enjoyed using it, but it’s hit or miss and not always functional. According to ZDNet, Facebook has hinted at a few additional features for the Windows flavor already: chatting with multiple friends, video calling, limiting chat availability, and editing settings.

UPDATE: Check out my article on how to control Facebook Timeline Privacy and how to delete old Facebook content!

For end users who are constantly on the site to receive updates this could be a very welcome application. Instead of requiring someone to have a tab open in a browser to receive chats, check status updates, etc the user would simply run the Facebook messenger application. However, using the Facebook Messenger application to receive those updates requires you to remain logged into the site. Being logged into the site of course allows for Facebook tracking for everything you do on the web. Facebook tracking allows the company to compile data on your surfing habits, and allows them to target ads by having ever more data on your personal life. Again, the application requires you stay logged in so that it can deliver chat and notification messages to your desktop; also ensuring that Facebook tracking is on at all times. This means you will stay logged into Facebook, and Facebook tracking will be active, even after you close your browser. To log out of Facebook, you’ll need to actually do so from Facebook Messenger for Windows.

Many might say that other companies do this as well. Clearly, other Internet giants like Google and Microsoft do this as well. The issue is the WAY Facebook implements Facebook tracking and further abuses users privacy. Last year Facebook updated it’s privacy policies. The issue was that by default users were automatically opted ‘IN’ to these new settings, which in most cases loosened restrictions on how widely personal data was shared. You of course had the option to opt out – but in practical terms, the menus to do so were often buried deep in a confusing maze of privacy settings. The constant changes to Facebook tracking raised so many eyebrows that the FTC began investigating Facebook back in December 2009, after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), complained that Facebook had harmed its users by changing privacy settings in a way that encouraged them to reveal their names, photos, gender, and other personal information. Facebook tracking and abuses of privacy have a long history. The company is not very upfront, and doesn’t make it simple to understand of change your privacy settings. The new Facebook Timeline further confuses things.

FYI: For more information on how to take control of your Facebook Timeline check out my article on How To Take Control of your Timeline.

In November of 2011, Senator Jay Rockefeller declared he wanted to hold a hearing to understand how Facebook uses cookies for Facebook tracking. Stating that the company has been accused multiple times for using Facebook tracking to track users even after they log out of the service. With the release of Messenger Facebook Tracking will be even easier for the company as users will remain logged into the “site” even when they don’t have the website loaded in a browser tab.

Remove old Facebook content: If you’re concerned over the new privacy implication of Facebook Timeline check out my article on how to Remove Facebook content from your Timeline.

Related posts:

1. Facebook tracks what you do online, even when you log out of Facebook
2. Privacy issues over Facebook Messenger are inaccurate
3. Facebook Privacy: FTC Requires Settings To Be Opt-In

Facebook Timeline Privacy Faux Pas

One of the first things you need to understand is WHY people who understand Timelines implications are upset, so let’s take a look at what Facebook Timeline privacy faux pas they’ve introduced. There is a minimum of three things the new timeline automatically makes public to not just your friends but everyone on the Internet.

UPDATE: Check out my new article on how Facebook tracking will deepen with the release of Facebook Messenger !

• Every public event listed on Facebook that you’ve ever RSVP’d to

 What we’re talking about here aren’t even public events like you might think of them. For instance, going to a concert is what I would consider a “public” event. A party with close friends, that just happened to be created as a public event does not. Facebook doesn’t make any distinction, so listed on your page will be EVERY event you’ve ever RSVP’d to, right under your name.

• When you opened your Facebook account

Perhaps not as big a deal, in fact the earlier you were on board the more you might see it as a badge of honor. Still, Facebook Timeline privacy has changed in this regard making your signup time public.

• Every time you started using an app within Facebook

Facebook Timeline Privacy – delete Facebook content

The most complete solution is to simply remove all your old Facebook content. If you’ve been on the site for a long time, or are an active user this can be a mindbogglingly daunting task. However, with the use of Exfoliate you can automate the task to delete Facebook content. Exfolitate runs on Android and can take a LONG time to run, so if you’re interested doing a reboot and want to delete Facebook content then check out how to Remove Facebook content with an Android app running on your desktop.

Facebook Timeline Privacy – locking it down and regaining some control

 Control Application Permissions

With the new redesign comes an interesting policy called “frictionless sharing,” which says that apps only have to ask for your permission once before accessing your info or posting as you whenever they want. You can’t change the policy, but you can control which friends get to see the app activity, change certain app permissions, or hide the activity entirely (without deleting the app). I suggest checking out CNet’s guide to modify these settings if you’d like to keep them in place, or my guide on how to remove Facebook app permissions.

UPDATE: Check out my new article on how Facebook tracking will deepen with the release of Facebook Messenger here!

Restrict Visibility of Past Posts

One of the major reasons you should consider your Facebook Timeline privacy is that the new Timeline layout many of your posts, photo galleries, and comments that were previously only visible to your friends, are now publicly visible to anyone in the world. So one of the very first things you should do to control your Facebook Timeline privacy is restrict the visibility of past posts. To do this click the drop down arrow next to home (or click the following link) and go the privacy settings page. On that page you’ll see an item to Limit the Audience for Past Posts, click the link in that section to Manage Past Post Visibility.

Go ahead and select “Limit Old Posts” and it will set every old post to “friends only” ensuring that past content is visible only to your friends and not to the Internet at large.

Ensure your mobile number remains private

If you don’t mind your friends having your mobile number then you can skip this step. I have many “Facebook Friends” who aren’t real life friends that I see often. There’s no reason for them to have my cell phone number. Remember when everyone freaked out about Facebook exposing their phone numbers? Let’s prevent that from happening again. To do this you need to click on your profile icon to get to your Timeline. Below your name is the About section, click that and you’ll see several sections for which you can control the Facebook Timeline privacy settings. I’d suggest reviewing them all, but specifically review your phone number section. Hover over the lock icon and if it doesn’t say “Only Me” then click edit and change your settings.

Limit who can post and who can see posts by others your Timeline

Something else to consider regarding your Facebook Timeline privacy is the implications of what someone ELSE might have posted to your wall. Again, click the dropdown by your name and select the Privacy Settings item. From there click on the link for How You Connect.

The last two items on the dialog box that displays are the one’s you’re concerned with when you want to control Facebook Timeline privacy. You can elect to allow friends to post on your Timeline, as well as who can see posts by others on your Timeline. For maximum Facebook Timeline privacy you would set those to “Only Me” as in the image above, or use the Facebook controls to determine what level of privacy you’d like for each of those.

UPDATE: Check out my new article on how Facebook tracking will deepen with the release of Facebook Messenger here!

Facebook Timeline privacy and tagging

Once again, click the dropdown by your name and select the Privacy Settings item. From there click on the link for How Tags Work and you’ll see the following dialog box:

Review EVERY item on this list, as they all pertain to privacy and security. Specific to Facebook Timeline privacy are the top three items. So ensure that you look at the Timeline Review, Tag Review, and Maximum Timeline Visibility and adjust the settings to best suit you.

Get to know your activity log to maintain Facebook Timeline privacy

Activity Log is something Facebook has actually implemented properly. It’s very handy as only you can see it and it provides a lot of control for recent activity. To access your Activity Log view your Timeline (click your profile picture) and then on the Timeline page on the right hand side look for Activity Log and click it. Now you can review and choose who sees everything you’ve shared – from today back to when you first started using Facebook.

As I said earlier, I used Exfoliate to automate the tasks to delete Facebook content. Exfolitate runs on Android and can take a LONG time to run, so if you’re interested doing a reboot and want to delete Facebook content then check out how to Remove Facebook content with an Android app running on your desktop. After you’ve done that, or if you want to do it manually, the Activity Log is the place to do it. Take special note of the two icons next to each item. The first displays what friends can see the content, the second controls if the item is visible on your Timeline or not. Adjust each item to control Facebook Timeline privacy for individual items as you go.

Review your Facebook Timeline privacy by viewing as someone else

The last step is to review how your Facebook Timeline privacy changes will look when being viewed by someone else. To do this view your Timeline, and click the cog on the right hand side, then select View As… Once you’ve done this the page will refresh and you’ll see an input box at the top of the page allowing you to enter in someone else’s name. You can now review your Facebook Timeline privacy as viewed by one of your friends. Additionally, you can type in ‘public’ and see how your public Timeline appears to someone who isn’t a friend.

UPDATE: Check out my new article on how Facebook tracking will deepen with the release of Facebook Messenger here!

Related posts:

1. Timeline Privacy Settings: Manage Open Graph App Posts
2. Disable Facebook Timeline: How to
3. Facebook Privacy: FTC Requires Settings To Be Opt-In