Social Networking Sites That Offer the Best Privacy Protection

Facebook is by far the most secure social networking website that offers the best privacy protection to its users. Even though lots of articles have appeared before on different websites stating how bad Facebook is secured and how many leaks the website has; let me tell you one thing. Those news articles give Facebook a bad impression, but Facebook is actually very secure.


The reason why so many news articles about bugs and leaks in Facebook appear is because many, many professional hackers take Facebook for a spin, because Facebook is the most popular social networking site. That makes it a huge target, and thus many leaks are found and written about.


You can compare this situation with the various successful Windows operating systems developed by Microsoft. Windows is the most used operating system in the world, which makes it the ultimate target for hackers to find bugs and exploits to abuse. Why don't you hear as much about bugs and exploits found in Apple's Macintosh operating system? Because Macintosh isn't as popular as Windows.


Hackers targeted Windows because way more users are using that operating system, and so they can abuse way more computers and get confidential information. There are bugs in Macintosh too, but hackers don't care to dig for them because there are significantly less Macintosh users in the world.


So let's go back to Facebook: same situation here. MySpace, Friendster etc. too contain bugs, but hackers simply do not care. Is that weird, knowing that Facebook has five hundred million of users? No, it is not. There's only one major leak in Facebook, that is still not fixed as I'm writing this article. That leak is so popular it even has a name: 'the Facebook user'.


That's right, most of the times, it's the user that didn't optimally configure their security settings that Facebook offers. If you configure your security settings the right way, you can rest assured that your data is and will remain confidential. I'll show you the three main security tips every Facebook user should know about.


= Remove your profile from the Facebook search results =


The best way to keep unwanted people away is to hide your profile from the search results. That way, people entering your name to look up your profile, will not get to see your Facebook profile. You can configure this in the Search Privacy Settings page. Under "Search Visibility", you should select "Only Friends", save the changes you've just made, and you're done.


= Hide your profile for search


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Hiding your profile from the Facebook search results won't make a lot of difference if you're still visible to people searching your name on Google, and you guessed it... Facebook has a setting for that, too. Visit the Search Privacy Settings page again, and under "Public Search Listing", you should uncheck the box that says 'Create a public search listing for me and submit it for search engine indexing'.


= Photo tag problem =


Another huge problem on Facebook that is created by the users themselves, is the photo tagging problem. Pictures of you being drunk being posted on Facebook, for the whole world to see, can have some nasty consequences. People have been fired from work after their boss discovered pictures that weren't meant to be seen by him/her. Tagged photos can result in huge trouble.


Preventing tagged pictures from showing up in all of your friends news feeds is actually very simple. Visit your Profile Privacy page, and look for "Photos Tagged of You". Modify the setting next to it and select "Customize". A box will pop up. Choose "Only me", and then "None of My Networks". Afterwards, you can add some exceptions such as really close friends. You have now saved yourself from any potential future embarrassments.