A few years back, Facebook seemed to be a lot easy to use and understand. Managing its various features could be quite overwhelming; however there are options to make the social network more manageable. The following could be helpful to the user –
- Reduce notifications in Facebook
One cannot get rid of all notifications on Facebook however a lot of them could be disabled. This can be done by going to Settings and click on `Notification’, wherein once there you could adjust alerts one intends to get on the computer of phone. Facebook does not disable email notifications through Setting. You will have to click `Unsubscribe to every kind of notice till they are stopped. In order to stop alerts for group or page one needs to go to each page and individually select `Off’ or click `Unlike or Hide on the page’. In case of an event, you could remove yourself from the guest list which would be an easy way of avoiding the RSVP or could select `Hide from News Feed’
- Turn off auto-play Video in Facebook
In auto-play video, on ends up downloading some date that one might want to and run the risk of seeing something you may not intend to see. By turning off auto play for the desktop site, you could go to the Video section towards the bottom of the Settings and change from Default to Off. On the mobile app, one could touch the icon with the three horizontal lines and after scrolling down, select App Settings and tap on Video Auto Play and opt for whatever is needed.
- Save content to read or watch later
There are options to be bookmarked with News Feed post wherein one could click on the upside down arrow towards the top right corner of a post and then opt for `save video or link’. To check on whatever has been collected, you could click on the Saved button on the side of the Facebook homepage.
- Tell people how to pronounce your name
In the profile section you could click on `Details about You’ and select an audio pronunciation key which will help in the right pronunciations of your name.
- Figure out if someone has blocked you
Facebook does not and may not notify the user when they have been blocked and you need not use any external apps or browser plugins to get to know it either. Some of these tips could be helpful such as:
- Posts shared on each other’s timelines tend to disappear and are restored when a block is removed.
- Chat logs tend to remain intact and new messages are not delivered
- When one clicks on the name in a chat window or in an old notification, one would get the message, `The link you followed may have expired, or the page may only be visible to an audience you’re not in’.
- Once a person is unblocked, you have to send a friend request once again
- Block Candy Crush and other invites
Besides blocking individual users, Facebook also tends to enable you to block app invites, pages as well as event invites. If a friend’s name has been added to the Block App Invites setting, you will not see another Candy Crush request from the person again.
- Find things shared or commented on in the past
You can navigate your Activity Log for key words in a post or photo captions. In desktop site, click the drop down menu towards the top of the page and opt for Activity Log and use the Activity Search option at the top right corner.
- Figure out who may see your likes and comments on their News Feeds
If a friend has shared something on Facebook, she tends to dictate the privacy setting for that item and when you comment on it or like it, all who tend to fall under that privacy setting will be able to see that action in their News Feed or news ticker.
- Shrink the amount of space that Facebook takes up on your phone
The mobile app of Facebook is more than 96 MB in size and can grow to hundreds and hundreds of megabytes, especially ifone tends to browse the Web a lot within the app. This is because of Facebook temporary storage of photos seen on New Feed and webpage’s data on the phone which loads faster. To clear the cache on iPhones, delete the Facebook app and reinstall it. On Android clear an app’s cache by long pressing on the app icon dragging it into App Info and select Clear Cache.
- Choose whose news you prefer to see first
Facebook had introduced a `See First’ feature which enables a user to choose their favourite people and see news about their lives first. By hovering over a friend’s name click on Following and select `See first’.
- Log off Facebook on another computer
Go to Settings and opt for Security. In the section `You’re Logged In’ you will see which devices have been utilised to access your Facebook account. You could choose the End Activity option to sign out of a device.
- See all the apps used for Facebook login
In the Settings, click on Apps in order to check which third party programs have access to your Facebook information. Be aware that apps will not post to your Facebook without permission.
