Facebook Tips & Tricks

Facebook is a social networking site that makes it easy for you to connect and share with family and friends online. Originally designed for college students, Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg while he was enrolled at Harvard University. By 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address could join Facebook. Today, Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion users worldwide.

Here are a few Interesting Facebook tricks you might not know and can use to upgrade your Facebook experience.

Remove Your Last Name from Your Facebook Profile: If you want a bit more privacy on Facebook (i.e., keep random people from looking you up your profile!), this trick could help.

Technically, Facebook requires every user to submit their first and last name when initially creating an account for security reasons.

Once your account is created, though, you can bypass this so only your first name displays on your profile and across Facebook.

First, you’ll need to change your proxy settings. (Note: These instructions are for Google Chrome):

• Click the ellipsis icon in the upper-right corner of your browser. It has three vertical dots (…), and when you mouse over it, it says Customize and control Google Chrome.
• Go to Settings. Scroll all the way to the bottom and click Advanced. Continue scrolling to System > Open proxy settings.
• If you’re on Windows, an Internet Properties box should pop up. Go to the Connections tab and click on LAN settings.
• A Local Area Network (LAN) Settings box should pop up. Under Proxy Server, check the box for the option Use a proxy server for your LAN.
• Enter 36.65.151.31 for the Address and 8080 for the Port and hit OK.
• Once your proxy settings are updated, you can go into Facebook to finish up.

On the mobile version of Facebook:

• Go to Settings > Language Settings.
• Under Language for buttons, titles and other text from Facebook on this device choose Bahasa Indonesian and save.
• Wait for Chrome to automatically translate the page back to English. (Or right-click the page and choose Translate to English.)
• Go to Settings > Personal information > Name. Delete your last name and confirm the changes.
• Return to the language settings and switch back to English.
• Done!

Change Your Display Language to ‘Pirate’: While we’re talking about language settings, did you know Facebook has a “Pirate” option?

Note: There’s also an “Upside down” option if you’re feeling extra mischievous.

To make Facebook display in Pirate-speak:

• Go to Settings > Language.
• Under the Facebook language setting, choose English (Pirate) from the drop-down menu and save.

You will see a few major differences immediately.

Mute Friends in Your Feed Who Post Too Much: You may have one of those friends who seem to post whenever the mood strikes. All. The. Time.

You don’t want to unfriend this person, but you want to see less of their ‘Random Thoughts’ and memes on your feed,

In the upper-right corner of one of the offender’s recent posts, click the ellipsis (…). This gives you options that will help curate your News Feed.

• To mute your friend’s posts (i.e., remove them from your feed without unfriending), choose Hide all from xx.
• If you just want a break from their posts, choose Snooze xx for 30 days.
• To see fewer posts of this nature in general, choose Hide post and make Facebook’s algorithm smarter.

Make Your Posts Fancier: A quick way to make your Facebook posts a little fancier is to use the Cool Fancy Text Generator https://coolsymbol.com/cool-fancy-text-generator.html. Use it to write titles, short blurbs, or make words stand out.

Type your text into the box, choose your style, then copy and paste into Facebook. You can even add fun symbols to spruce things up.

Turn Off Birthday Notifications: By default, Facebook notifies you in the morning when it’s one of your friends’ birthdays. Of course, if you have a big list of friends, this can get annoying.

To turn it off:

• Go to Settings > Notifications.
• In the list of settings, find Birthdays and turn it off.

Download a Copy of All Your Facebook Data: Yes, all of it.

• Posts and photos you’ve created or shared.
• Comments you’ve posted.
• Messages you’ve sent and received.
• Everything you have ever liked or reacted to.
• Your list of followers and who you’re following.
• Even Pokes you’ve given and received (does anybody do those anymore?) are all stored on Facebook.

If you want a copy of the information from one, a few, or all of these categories, it’s simple:

• Go to Settings > Your Facebook Information > Download Your Information.
• Click the checkboxes next to the information categories you’d like to include in your file. Or, filter by date range.
• Choose your format (HTML or JSON) and media quality, and then hit Create File.

Block App Invites & Game Requests: Say your cousin/friend won’t stop inviting you to play Bubble Shooter. If you can’t take it anymore, block those app invites from ever reaching you.

• Go to Settings > Blocking. Scroll to Block app invites.
• Enter the name of the friend or relative who has an “invite” bug.

Download Entire Facebook Photo Albums from People You Follow: The only way to save the photo album from that conference you attended is to download each individual picture one-by-one.

Instead of wasting time, use a Chrome extension to download entire albums at once from people you’re following.

• Install DownAlbum for Chrome (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebook-tricks/296465/#close).
• Go to the Facebook photo album you want to download.
• Click the DownAlbum icon in your browser toolbar, then click “Normal”.
• A new page will load with the photo album. Hit the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + S to save them all at once