Facebook Scraping SMS and Call logs

In case you haven’t heard or know about this Facebook scraped (grabbed/uploaded and stored!) call, text message data for years from Android phones! [Read about it here – https://goo.gl/acrfJW]

[Many are saying that this didn’t/couldn’t happen on iPhones, but I believe that as much as I believe that Facebook when they say

“.. that the company keeps the data secure and does not sell it to third parties”.]

For years now, I have never used Facebook Messenger on any phones, ever; I tested the app security a couple times and during install it requested accesses to all kinds of stuff including sms and phone logs, contact information access to phone storage etc.. (I have a security extension (X Privacy – requires root) that lets you see EVERY process an application requests access to. I saw the permissions the application asked for and knew it would be bad. Looks like, I was right.

To access messenger messages I use a computer Browser or a web session on my phone set to use the ‘desktop agent’. I’ll explain that at the bottom of this post.

So what to do now if you’re one of those who have been snared:

On phone app:

How to manage contact uploading with the Facebook App.

Facebook will upload your contacts from your device if you have continuous uploading turned on. To turn off continuous uploading in the Facebook app:

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  2. Tap App Settings.
  3. Tap Continuous Contacts Upload to turn this setting on or off.

You can also tap Sync Your Call and Text History to turn this setting on or off. Syncing your call and text history makes it easier to connect you to your friends.

How do I delete contacts I uploaded to Facebook?

To delete contacts you’ve uploaded to Facebook:

  1. Go to the Manage Invites and Imported Contacts page.
  2. Tap the box next to the contacts you want to delete.
  3. Tap Delete Selected.

You can view or remove your uploaded contacts on the Manage Invites and Imported Contacts page.

Now if you wish to view messages on your phone without the FB messenger you can login to your Facebook account with a browser (for that I use Opera) and set the ‘user agent’ option to desktop – this will tell the FB servers that you are connecting from a computer and not a phone. [Just make sure the address you type in the address bar is https://facebook.com and NOT m.facebook.com – the ‘m’ sets it to mobile.

Open Opera Mobile Browser:

Tap on Opera Menu and you’ll see Settings option, tap Settings

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In the settings scroll down to the Content section and you’ll find the Default user Agent setting.

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Tap that and you can set the agent to Desktop

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Now when you open that Browser and go to a website you’ll see the ‘desktop’ version and not the mobile version. Like I said I use this for Facebook to check/send messages and also see differences in how FB presents things on my timeline based on the agent.

Un-F@#k Facebook

I was logged into Facebook recently to search for and show someone something I saw posted. The person that was with started to freak! They said, “How come your Facebook looks so much different? Where’s all the other shtuff on the pages?”

I explained I use the F.B Purity extension (Available on Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers too) Formally called Facebook Flufbuster. It has been my go to extension to un-f@#k Facebook for some time now. I recommend it to many but they often don’t take the time to read the guides/how to’s on their site or just can’t get it to work as well I they saw on my browser(s).

So for those that are interested or care here you go.

Here’s a view from my timeline:

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Simple easy to read posts and no extemporaneous crap or distractions. Below are my current exact settings:

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Fix Facebook Annoyances.

I used to use the Firefox and Chrome extension called SocialFixer to unF**k my Facebook.
Sadly however, that extension has not been updated in some time.

I’ve found another extension that works nearly as admirably – F.B. Purity
Check it out if you’d like to wrest back control of your Facebook experience.

I can’t even post this on FB because they don’t like the plugin!!

I’ve removed so much FB crap from my feed it’s actually usable again!

Check it out. install extension, go to FBP options and start hiding (by checking) loads of annoying crap. You’ll be amazed!

How to Block Your Wall on Facebook From a Friend, Friend of Friend or everyone. And How to Block a Wall Post on Facebook

So far these are the simplest instructions I’ve come up with for How to Block Your Wall on Facebook From a Friend, Friend of Friend or everyone. And How to Block a Wall Post on Facebook

1 Click “Account” at the top right of your profile screen.

2 Click “Privacy Settings.” Click the “Custom” button and then click “Customize settings.”

3 Click the current privacy settings next to “Posts by me.” Your current privacy setting is either “Everyone,” “Friends of friends” or “Friends only.” Click “Customize.”

4 Type the name of the person you wish to block from setting your wall in the “These people” text box under “Hide from.” Click “Save Setting.”

Then Check this too

1 Log into Facebook and click “Edit My Profile” at the upper left.

2 Click the “Privacy Preferences” link in the left column.

3 Select the “Edit Settings” link from the “How You Connect” area.

4 Select the gray menu box positioned to the right of “Who Can See Wall Posts.” A menu appears.

5 Click “Custom.”

6 Click the “These People” text field in the Hide This From section.

7 Type the name of the person you want to block from posting on your wall. Names appear below the These People field while you type.

8 Click the person’s name. His name appears in the “These People” field. Repeat Steps 7-8 to add more people.

9 Select “Save Changes.”

In your PRIVACY SETTINGS, if you want to change how your wall appears to others you need to go to TIMELINE & TAGGING and change your settings there. I have this feeling that most of you are going to CONTROL YOUR DEFAULT PRIVACY and making your changes there. Control your default privacy only changes your future post, until you change it again. So, if you make sure that you set those first (TIMELINE & TAGGING). Keep in mind this does not change settings for your posts, not photo Album.

Here’s another little secret. On your wall underneath your wall banner is ACTIVITY LOG and right next to it is a GEAR icon. If you click that icon, select VIEW AS. A search bar will appear on the top left corner of your page . Select a name of one of your friend and it will show you exactly how your page appears to that friends and if you read the description you’ll notice the word PUBLIC in blue and it will show you how the page appears to the public. This is how you can view your settings! [if you do this make sure you clear your internet cache settings first!] 🙂

I’d also like to put in another recommendation for the use of ‘Social Fixer’ a Browser Plugin to dramatically improve your ability to control the layout and functionality of Facebook.

Below are some screen captures of the above procedures for you if you care.

Hope this helps some who’ve been asking me.

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For your future post make sure your settings are defined correctly as you do them.

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Facebook Timeline Fix with Social Fixer

OK. I was asked again about Facebook’s Timeline and how to ‘fix it’ and make the experience more like ‘it used to be’. I’ll tell you now: You are stuck with Facebook Timeline – it’s Facebook’s world and what they say goes in their world. (for the most part anyways). And Facebook says EVERYONE is getting Timeline!

BUT you can Un-Fack the Timeline and make it more ‘enjoyable’ by using the Social Fixer extension for Firefox, Chrome, Opera or Safari. Get it here. I just posted about this a couple of days ago but seems not many actually read it. Hope you will this time. The folks at Lifehacker put up a quick and simple video of it’s use here:

 

So get the extension, watch the video and experiment and see if this help you.

I have also written numerous articles on using extension/add-ons for Browsers – specifically Firefox and Chrome. Since so many of us spend so much time interacting with the world via a Browser window, it’s seems utterly silly that most won’t or don’t customize or tweak that window for more productivity, security and enjoyment. Maybe, many of you just don’t know what you can do. But now you do. So go search through my blog to find those other tips!

While I’m here let me give you some other links on how to better secure your Facebook Profile and enhance your personal security.

Techworld has a VERY good article here. I agree with, and do everything they mention.

Have fun and stay safe out here. 🙂

Peace.

SocialFixer fixes Facebook replaces BetterFacebook

Better Facebook extension/Addon has been updated/changed to ‘SocialFixer’

This extension makes Facebook SO much more useable!! It’s just great. I hope you check it out.

If you previously had the Better Facebook! extension installed remove it.

Then go here and install the new version called Social Fixer for your preferred browser(s).

Install the Social Fixer Extension (for Firefox, Chrome, Opera etc.) Then go to https://facebook.com You will then be prompted with the configuration wizard.

Here is what the wizard looks like and here are the settings I chose.

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I don’t like the ‘Light Box’ feature, so I choose to Disable Light Box Viewer:

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I’m also fine with the Default theme

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I also went in and made more changes.

You will see a little ‘Wrench’ where you can access your ‘Social Fixer’ settings:

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Here you can REALLY TWEAK away.

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My advice is to make one or two changes at a time and sees how they work for YOU.

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I hope that helps some of you wrest control of you Facebook back. Peace out.

More on fixing Facebook

I wrote about using the Firefox (Chrome works too) add-on Greasemonkey and the super script BetterFacebook and I have been getting loads of requests for people asking me to go into a little more detail of how to use it. You should read that first here.

I am amazed at how well I was able to ‘un-muck’ my Facebook pages!

Here is what my Facebook home page now looks like now after setting up and using the BetterFacebook Greasemonkey Script in Firefox:

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Here are the options as I’ve selected them. Once installed and you restart your browser then ‘re-login’ to Facebook, cancel the set up wizard. Then go to the ‘new’ Options button near your User Name and click on it.

The options I selected give me virtually the same/old layout I’ve been used to and added the ‘feed’ to the right; which I actually find useful so long as it doesn’t try and take over the whole page. Also removed are ads and other garbage I never use – applications being the major one.

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Note above that I selected the ‘Stech the Layout…’ option

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Note that above I selected the ‘Force the main news feed to be ‘Most Recent’..

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And that’s all the settings I chose and hit ‘Save’.

I hope that helps those that asked. You’re all grown ups. I hope that you can take the time and a  chance to experience some ‘pain’ and learn how to do this.

Fix the ‘new’ Facebook feeds

Let’s try and fix some of the ‘new’ Facebook enhancements.

As some of you know I recommended that to get Facebook back to normal. You could Go Account Settings -> Language -> English (UK). And it seemed to work. But Facebook is pushing the crap out globally, so that may only work for a short time if at all now.

I have written many times previously about how to improve your browsing performance and productivity using Firefox and add-ons. Read here please  with special consideration of the Firefox add-on Greasemonkey.
Greasemonkey is a hugely popular add-on for Firefox browsers.
To me this is my most used add-ons the first being AdBlock Plus – Get that here. A GreaseMonkey script could be anything from blocking ads, to adding several different things to Google search, to a bot which basically browses the internet for you. Greasemonkey is most known for Firefox, however many scripts can now be run in the latest version of Chrome!
Get Greasemonkey here.

So on to the Facebook issues. We all now know how Facebook has made radical changes to the way the feed and news are presented, and more are on the way! And it has many in a tizzy. There are a few things that can be done to try and regain some functionality that many of us had been used to. That involves using Greasemonkey scripts and by extension the Firefox or Chrome Browsers.
The first script I would get is one:
BetterFacebook you can read about it here. Note that there are many options you should consider looking at once the script is installed. They will by up in the right hand corner in a drop down menu. I really like this one!
The script install for Firefox is here.

The next is FFixer, you can read about that here. I have noticed that this one requires loads of settings and you my not like it. If you installed it and don’t like it in Firefox go to Tools>Add Ons>User Scripts>then Disable FFixer.

The script install is here.

I also use Facebook Cleaner

As the next few days roll on I am sure that there will be many updates to these scripts and the addition of others to ‘fix’ Facebook. I will keep an eye out and let you all know what I find useful.

I hope this helps some of you.

Here are some articles on using Greasemonkey to improve other browsing:
http://findtricks.com/2011/08/24/top-25-best-facebook-greasemonkey-scripts/

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ultimate_greasemonkey_guide_google_chrome

Facebook news feed settings update

Facebook has changed its News Feed, so that by default, you can only see updates from people you’ve "recently interacted with." If you don’t change this and aren’t that active, then only a few of your friends will actually see your posts and vice versa.

YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO CHANGE IT AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR HOME PAGE, CLICK EDIT OPTIONS AT BOTTOM AND ADD "ALL FRIENDS" TO MAKE THE CHANGE

So Here is how to do that:

Login to Facebook:

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To Search for ‘Options’ link at the bottom of the page. The best way to do this is to

Press Ctrl F (if you are on a Windows PC) or Command F (if you are on a Mac) this will open a ‘find’ dialog box. The box will be located in the upper right, upper left or lower left depending on your Browser.

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Type in ‘Options’

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You will find it at the bottom of the page. Click on it to bring up the options:

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Open the drop down menu

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Change and then save and you’re done.

Get your Cloud Data down to your machine

Here are some ways to get your ‘cloud data’ backed up locally.

I know most people look to the ‘cloud’ for their secondary backups (if they even have a primary one) but few people ponder what will happen if their information is lost or compromised in the cloud or the terms of service of the provider that holds that information changes to your detriment.

I am going to provide some information on how to get your data out of your web email, Facebook and some other services.

One thing I see quite often is that people cannot access their online/web mail service at an important time to find information or they lose or have deleted the information they need and have no way of retrieving it.

So let’s start with web mail services. Today most people have very important information stored in their email; from plane reservations, business communications all the way to payment receipts. So in my opinion this is the first and most important place to start.

Get your mail downloaded locally.
For GMail. [My personal favorite!]:
Before you do anything, you’ll need to enable POP3 and/or IMAP in Gmail, which will let you access your accounts on the desktop. To do this, head into Gmail’s Settings and go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. Scroll down to the IMAP section and enable IMAP. Then save your changes, and open up your desktop email client of choice to set it up using the following instructions.

I use Outlook 2007/2010.

If you don’t have Outlook you can also use Thunderbird (an open source application by the Mozilla folks)

There are also a number of other mail applications you can use to get your information – Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook Express, LiveMail etc..

I like using the POP3 connections over IMAP for most of my connections.
POP mail service has been available MANY times when IMAP has NOT – for my Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo. If the ‘webmail’ is not available online because of a service interruption then IMAP will most certainly too. This is not usually the case with POP. HOWEVER there is a big caveat with POP – you must make sure in the advanced settings or your mail client that you choose "to leave a copy of the message on the server"!!

But IMAP does have its advantages too.
So pick what will provide you with the most features you feel you will need – I suspect that would be IMAP probably be best for most people.

To set up POP with Gmail look here,  and find your client and follow the steps.
For IMAP go here.  and find your client or device on the list and follow the instructions.

If you’d like to read further about the differences between IMAP and POP you can read this here.

For Yahoo mail it is a little harder if you live in the U.S..
Yahoo wants you upgrade to a "Mail Plus" paid account to get POP and IMAP access directly. But you don’t have to! The best option is to use an application called YPOPs. I’ve used it in the past to get my Yahoo mail connected to Thunderbird and Outlook with out any issues.

If you have Window Live Mail or Apple Mail the client itself downloads your Hotmail/.Live or MacMail/MobileMe data to your machine by default. BUT remember this is an IMAP connection so if you delete something from you Live Mail client on the desktop it will be deleted on the server!

One important thin that may people miss is to get their CONTACT data out/backed-up from their mail clients. Something I also feel is very important.
For virtually all web mail clients that is as simple as going to the ‘Contact’ section and finding and choosing the ‘Export’ option. Those can then be exported into a format that virtually any Email client can import.
That should get you going with your mail.

Now to Picasa.
Simplest way is to install the latest version Mac or PC and then simply go up to the menu and use File ==> Import from Picasa Web Albums ==> Select All.
And Flickr
You can use Flickr’s Flash based web app here  just click on the ‘start now’ and follow the instructions.
Or you can use the open source application Downloadr . Downloadr is a photo downloader for Microsoft Windows. It provides a simple interface to download large sized images from Flickr to your computer.

Now to Facebook.
If you have Yahoo you can easily download/copy all of your contact out. You can follow this tutorial here.  One tip is that I would suggest setting up a ‘temporary’ Yahoo alias with NO contacts in it so that you do not end up with duplicates or mismatched merges. Then export those and import them into any application you choose.

Also Facebook now allows you to actually export YOUR data to a file! Following this VERY well written walk-through right here. I’ve done it and it works great! You may have to wait a while before you receive your ‘confirmation email’ and link but you will be able to get your stuff.

Finally there is an open source application Called MyCube Vault. MyCube Vault Backs Up Your Facebook and Google Data Regularly
Once installed, the app requires you to authorize it to each of the services you want to back up. From there you can tell the service where to store your backups and how often to save your data. If you’re concerned about downtime or just wary of keeping your data in the cloud, it’s worth a look.

I checked it out and it works well.
Windows version here

Mac version here

Well that is a long winded post and I hope some people will put it to use. Like backing up your local data don’t be the person who loses precious information because you were too lazy or couldn’t be bothered to learn something new.

Peace.