Tweaking Facebook

We log on to Facebook to see photos of families and friends and see who’s off to some far away land and (probably) having more fun than we are - but we don’t want to give the book of faces too much information about ourselves. Here are some changes you can make to take control of Facebook.

Prevent your friend’s page likes from turning into ads

If you don’t want Facebook to show you ads from pages your friends have liked, you can turn it off.

Log in to Facebook. Click on the downward pointing triangle on the right side of the blue bar at the top. About half way down the list, click on Settings. Now, over on the left menu of the Settings page, in the bottom third of the menu, choose Ads. Now look for ‘Ads with my social actions’ and click on Edit. Change the drop-down list at the bottom to No one. This type of ad won’t show up anymore.

Hide your Facebook profile from search engines

When someone searches for your name on the internet, your Facebook profile will be in the top results. If you’d rather have your Facebook profile unlisted, as it were, you can hide it yourself.

Log in to Facebook. Click on the downward pointing triangle on the right side of the blue bar at the top. About half way down the list, click on Settings. Now, over on the left menu of the Settings page, in the top third of the menu, choose Privacy. Find the ‘Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your Profile?’ section and click Edit. Now uncheck ‘Allow search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile.’ This change might take a few days to take effect.

Block unwanted ads

If you’re getting ads on your Facebook feed that don’t apply to you, Facebook lets you block them. At the very top of the ad there is a downward pointing triangle. Click the triangle and pick the line that says ‘Hide ad’ and you’ll see fewer ads like that.

Stop Facebook from tracking you outside of Facebook

Facebook keeps eyes on you even when you’re off the site. Here’s how to change it.

Log in to Facebook. Click on the triangle pointing down on the right side of the blue bar at the top. About half way down the list, click on Settings. Now, over on the left menu of the Settings page, in the bottom third of the menu, choose Ads. Now find the ‘Ads based on my use of websites and apps’ section and click Edit. At the bottom of the section, choose No from the drop down.

Clean up your News Feed

Sometimes our Facebook friends can get out of control. Close friends and family can get lost among all the people we only vaguely know. Let Facebook know who your close friends are.

Log in to Facebook. Over on the left side find News Feed under Favorites. Hover over it and then click on the little cog icon that shows up to the left and click Edit preferences. Click ‘Prioritize who to see first’ and star all of the people who mean the most to you. The next time any of your ‘stars’ post something, they should be at the top of your News Feed.

Re-sort your News Feed

Facebook normally sorts your News Feed by Top Stories. If you prefer the Twitter style of presenting the most recent posts first, you can change it.

Log in to Facebook. Over on the left side find News Feed under Favorites. Click on the downward pointing triangle and choose Most Recent.

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.

Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 – Of course, in 1943 a ‘computer’ was more mechanical than electronic and was bigger than a house.