How to check your Facebook privacy settings

Third-party applications can help you make sure that you’re not sharing more information on Facebook than you expect.

I’ve written about Facebook’s privacy issues a couple of time recently – see The ongoing saga of Facebook privacy issues: should you be concerned? and Social networking: are you your own worst enemy? One of the main problems with Facebook’s privacy settings is that they can be somewhat overwhelming and confusing, with multiple options to control not only what information you share, but also to control the information that your friends can share and the information that can be accessed by the multitude of Facebook applications.

 

Ensuring that you have the privacy settings locked down so that you’re not unintentionally sharing information that you’d prefer be kept private can become a job of nightmare proportions – especially as Facebook keeps on changing the rules. In response to these problems, a couple of third-parties have released applications which may make your life a little bit easier.

The first of the apps is called SaveFace by Untangle – the makers of the open source firewall – and it’s a snap to use. Simply add the utility to your web browser’s favourites , log into Facebook and then click SaveFace in your favourites menu and it’ll automatically set your personal information, friends, wall posts, etc to “friends only.” Pretty easy, eh?

The second app is called ReclaimPrivacy.org and works in much the same way as SaveFace, but prompts as to whether you wish to change any potentially problematic settings.

Will you be using these apps to check your Facebook privacy settings? Do you take any precautions in regards to your privacy settings or do you have everything set to Facebook’s default settings?