Surely, you have read enough about concerns raised over facebook privacy and the so called quit-facebook movement. And you have finally decided to e-wake up and wanna change or at least have a look at your facebook settings, but need some help to overcome wizard like distribution of settings that Facebook have thrown at you (literally!) to dampen the whole initiative. Don’t blame yourself for your not alone but just a kind of guy PrivacyDefender is looking to help out.
A free app on facebook, PrivacyDefender aims to simplify the process of changing the privacy settings, that are well known for their complexity. A default settings page for managing the exposure through facebook throws users into unwanted puzzle lasting 10 to 30 mins, which is quite not bearable for non-geeks, who do constitute a major portion of facebook users.
To enable the app, follow this link and select allow (common, don’t doubt this one, atleast) to let the app take it over. It will ask you to place a bookmark shortcut on your browser’s bookmark toolbar. Just do it. Once you click on the toolbar bookmark button, it will start eveluating your current settings and resulting exposure and will present it beautifully in a chart differentiating with colors. Quite obvious, green color signifies the okay situation while red color implies caution. Yellow, as always lies in the middle somewhere.
The chart basically shows your exposure on the world’s most popular social networking website with over 500 million subscribers. Modifying the settings is easy. Observe the 3 options under the tab ‘Share my stuff with’. Locate it in the right side of the graph. It has quick shortcuts to limit/extend the exposure. You just have to click the ‘fix my settings’ tab appearing in the bottom right corner after selecting your exposure level from 3 options to have a quick adjustment made to settings. And you are done.
Their are some pitfalls though. Like you don’t have the depth of control like in default facebook settings. I think that is what has affected the app’s user ratings, standing at just 2.5 stars out of 5. The developer have made promise to bring more options.
What is also in the works is the announcement by Facebook chief that the settings will be updated to bring the maximum number of settings to decent level of 10 options or so from the currently draconian numbers.
Hope all goes well with this. Visit more announcements in technology like the Prototype of XO-3 tablet and the Google Homepage customization.
Via VentureBeat
