Get rid of your Facebook search history (maybe)

Whenever you view someone's page on Facebook, there's a record of that visit. So, if you're in to viewing your ex's page over and over, Facebook knows this. (Your ex will not, no matter how many of the fake "Do you know who's viewing your profile?" apps he or she installs.)

The same goes for if you're searching for the Facebook page of that fantastic Mexican place you just visited. Your search history is recorded, just as it is if you use something like Google (when you are logged in to your Google account, then your searches can be linked to you as well).

On Google, you can choose not to have your search history accessible through your account (Google still holds search logs on its own servers, but they'll be deleted after 18 months). On Facebook, you have to manually delete your search history.

Until a few weeks ago, there actually wasn't any way to view your previous search history at all. But I knew that Facebook was keeping a log of it. Just typing in the first letter of a cafe I frequent, whose Facebook page I'd visited several times previously, brings it up -- even though I have never actually Liked the page.

But now, there's a way to view your old search logs -- and delete them in one big go if you so desire.

The way to do it:

• Go to your Timeline and click the Activity Log button.
• Under Posts and Apps, scroll down to Search and click it.There, you see all the searches you have made, including the time you searched.
• To clear all the searches, click Clear Searches.
• After the warning message comes up, click Clear Searches again to confirm.(If for some reason you want to keep the searches and only delete a few, you can individually click on the lock symbol on the right-hand side next to the particular search you want to delete.)

Now although your search history is now cleared, I expect that Facebook still has a record of the search log somewhere - typical search engines will for legal purposes as much as anything. (Typing the first letter of that cafe still brings them up first in my search results, even though I've deleted the log.)

This clean-up is also something you need to manually do on a regular basis as you can't turn off the search history logs. So, put a recurrent reminder in your calendar and maybe combine it with your general web browser history clean-up session.

How your private photos Facebook can be made public

A few months back we discussed Facebook photo album privacy settings and how you can make sure your bosses don't see those Christmas party shots, for instance. And a few days ago we explained what content is viewable when you are logged out, including photos.

But there are still a couple of ways in which your photo albums - and your friends' pics - can be seen by people outside your immediate circle (including ones who refuse to join Facebook) regardless of privacy settings. You would think that if you set your album to be viewed only by 'friends' that no one else could see them.

This isn't necessarily true.

Unique album URL method:
When logged in and viewing your photos, there's a special album URL (web address) displayed at the bottom of the screen. It takes the form (where the Xs represent random numbers/letters):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=xxxxx&l=xxxxxx&id=YOURFACEBOOKIDNUMBER

This is a unique URL and if people don't know it they won't be able to access your album (there was a loophole last year, now fixed, that allowed people to easily circumvent this by guessing the string of characters the Xs represented). However, anyone who has the URL will be able to view the album even if they aren't on Facebook -- yes, even if you only wanted friends to view the album. So, if you email an album's address to 20 mates and they send it to all their friends, a lot more people than you intended could be viewing the album.

So, before we send that unique URL to our friends, we will consider who else might be told about it and the implications not only for ourselves, but for our friends.

Image URL method:
Go to anyone's album and click on an image thumbnail. Right-click the image and choose to copy the image's URL. You can paste the address (ctrl+V) into the address bar and view it even when logged out. You can also embed the image so it appears on other websites.

Oh, and here's a little 'Easter egg' - delete everything up to any forward slash in the image's URL, and you get this guy wearing a "Little Celtics Fan" bib. Now what's all that about?

They're still out there: Facebook Applications

The new-look Facebook does away with having to endure the tedious applications that plagued traditional profile layouts. In the past, you would see, quite literally in some cases, more than a hundred icons and boxes representing various apps that your friend may have added to their profile page. Now, all this crap is hidden behind a tab called Boxes, and under this tab you can choose to display chosen Applications or just access them via the Applications menu.

In 2007, the most popular apps included Scrabulous (the unofficial online version of Scrabble), and the ability to be bitten by a vampire. Flixster, Super Walls and slideshows were also the rage.

Although you may think your Applications are now gone for good, they've just been shoved under a mat and they do pop out from time to time. You will still need to make sure Applications like games don't harangue your friends every minute to try and beat your high score, or post updates to your profile every time you play. To do so:

Click Applications, located at the bar to the bottom of your screen, then Edit, to see a list of all your applications.

Next to the Application settings you want to view, click Edit.

For Geo Challenge, I see these options:

Allow Geo Challenge to publish one-line stories automatically, but prompt me for larger stories.

Prompt me before publishing any stories from Geo Challenge.

Never publish any stories from Geo Challenge.

Allow Geo Challenge to publish specific story sizes automatically without prompting.

Then there are the e-mail notifications. To adjust these, click Settings at the top of every Facebook page. Click Notifications, and right at the bottom, under Other Applications, you'll be able to select whether or not you want to be alerted on e-mail whenever something happens (whatever something is).

Facebook photo privacy settings

Strangers are just friends you haven't met (but who've met you).

Facebook photos are all the rage. Practically every day, I see someone who's posted a photo of themselves or their friends. And when I go out with my camera, my friends are always scared I'll post a picture of them on Facebook. This does happen, but I'll always honor takedown requests.

What happens when you post a photo on Facebook is that you can choose to have the photo visible by either:

• Friends (say you have 100 friends, then all 100 friends can see your album)
  
• Friends of friends (if your 100 friends have 90 friends each, then 9,000 people could potentially see your album)
  
• Everyone on Facebook (if your profile is public to your network, say, then anyone in that network can click through to your profile and your albums)
  

Click 'Customize' and you will also be able to specify further restrictions including:

• Some Friends (if you only have a couple of people you want to see your photos)
• Except these people (if you want everyone except your boss to see your photos)

Example: If you tag your friend Jim in a photograph and you've allowed Friends of Friends to see it, then when Jim's friend Pete gets a notification that Jim's been tagged in a photo, Pete can click through to the photo Jim's been tagged in.

But that's not all! Pete can now browse through your entire album even if Jim isn't in any more photos. In the past week I've seen plenty of albums belonging to people I don't know. Random babies, honeymoons to Uluru in Australia, Singaporean weddings, decadent parties with 19 year old girls posing seductively to the camera... and so on. And I have no idea who these people are.

So when you create your album you need to think of the parameters you're applying to the entire album, not the individual photos. Flickr allows you to edit privacy settings for each photo, but for Facebook you need to do it for each album.