Still avoiding Facebook? Our top 5 initiation tips

We all know them. People who refuse to go on Facebook. I've got about four or five who just refuse to use it. I don't blame them, really, it's not like they're missing out on anything by not going on there. Some are concerned about how much information they'll have to give away by joining it, but they are still keen to check out what's going on.

One friend I had joined a group whose aim was to get some poor soul on to Facebook. Not only had they amassed about 20-odd people, but they'd also posted some rather embarrassing photos of the person who would never know their images were plastered all over the site...

If you haven't joined but feel your social life is suffering and only want to dip your toes in the water, then here are our top five tips. One of them does contravene Facebook policy, but in the great scheme of things, it's nothing much!

1. Don't use your real surname. This is our tip, but it violates Facebook's terms of service so prepare for your account to be deleted any time. However, we see plenty of people on there with bizarre names, and Facebook has tens of millions of users. It's not going to check to see whether your name is real or not. It has better things do to. So, just make your name believable and you should be fine. Not using your real name means that your full name needn't be revealed to the site, and besides, your friends will know it anyway.

2. Make your search listing and friends list private. There are several options to avoid people finding you on Facebook, and these are found in your privacy settings. You can do all or just one or two of the following:

• Make it so your search result listing is not listed by search engines.
• Make it so your profile picture is not viewable by people not on your friends list.
• Let only friends of friends, find you on Facebook search, if you want to remain under the radar, or make it so no one can find you
  
• Make it so non-friends can't view your friends list.

3. Never list personal information. This means your gender, address, mobile, workplace, interests, marital status and website. You can choose to have your e-mail address visible only to yourself, which is good. But filling in all the other information means it's open for use by third-party application, Facebook, and Facebook advertisers.

4. Don't use your regular e-mail address. If someone looking for you types your regular e-mail address into Facebook, they will automatically initiate a friend request for you if you are registered under that address. By all means, avoid the request if you wish, but you can avoid them in the first place by creating a free account from Hotmail or Gmail.

5. Make a limited profile. You can adjust your profile so that selected acquaintances don't need to see pictures of your big night out.

Has anyone got any other suggestions?