Online Anonymity and Facebook Security: How to Make Yourself Protected

Facebook is so popular nowadays that almost anyone on the Internet has a Facebook page. Why not? Facebook is an efficient advertising tool for online businesses. Ordinary Internet users also find Facebook the perfect place to keep in touch with friends and families online. It brings families closer together and keeps friends updated with each other. Statistics reveal that Facebook has more than 250 million active users, more than 1 billion photos get uploaded each month by its users, and 70% of them use applications like games and quizzes. Unluckily, most of these users are not aware of the implications of entering personal information, making friends, and playing games on Facebook. Facebook is open to abuse, often to a very damaging level. A lady was hacked to death when a stalker found where she lived after she posted her home alone status on Facebook. Spending a few minutes of your time checking your Facebook privacy settings and making sure that you are not vulnerable of any unscrupulous online activities is all worth it. Here are very simple tips on keeping your online anonymity while on Facebook. Choose Your Friends WiselyAnyone you accept as a friend will have access to any information about you including photos you uploaded and marked as viewable by friends. Your page is like an open book to them, and they can see everything that is posted. That said, you need to be very careful about accepting friend requests of people you don't personally know. You don't have to befriend someone just because he is a friend of your friend. It is also a good idea to organize your friends in lists. This way you can easily ‘unfriend' groups of people at one time should you change your mind about them. You can also label people in your list as "limited friends" whose access to your profile is limited to a cut-down version. Make Your Page Invisible to SearchesCustomize your privacy settings so that your Facebook page is hidden when someone searches Facebook for people. You can choose which parts of your page can be seen by whom. You can also control how your contact information can be shared on the Internet. On top of that, you can also avoid appearing in Facebook and third-party advertisements. If your main purpose of using Facebook is to connect with people, then it is advisable to cut the bells and the whistles. Allow only those applications that you require and trust, for instance. Google loves Facebook – Facebook tends to rank high on Google's search results. Though what is displayed of your profile on search engine results is somewhat limited, the public information is enough for someone to have a good start if that person decides to track you down on the Internet. You can control the visibility of your public search listing which can be seen by Google and other search engines by turning off the public search listing option. Surf the Web AnonymouslySocial networking websites such as Facebook can be dangerous because just about anyone can see your information, posts, and photos online. Sad to say, Facebook has so many security loopholes its developers are still trying to address. For that reason, you need to keep your profile private and refrain yourself from posting information you don't want your neighbor to know on your profile. To add layer to the protection, surf the Internet anonymously. It is one of the best ways to make sure that you are protected online, not just when you are on Facebook. It is because when you surf anonymously, you can keep your online anonymity.