Facebook Help Center

Facebook gives users many tools for controlling what personal information is displayed to friends and others. But if you have lots of Facebook friends, you probably don’t want to create privacy settings for each person you know. However, Facebook allows you to create groups of friends, and you can specify privacy settings for these groups.

As an example, suppose you want to make your cell phone number available to personal friends, but you don’t want business contacts to see it. Here’s how.

Step 1. Assign Your Contacts to Friend Groups

facebook-add-listFrom Facebook’s Friends menu, select the “All Friends” dropdown. To the right of each friend’s name, you’ll see an “Add to List” option. Click the down arrow and select a list, or if you’ve never created any lists, type a new list name in the text box. For the purposes of this example, I’m creating two lists — “Business” and “Personal.”

Once you’ve assigned a friend to a list, the name of the list will appear below their name. You can add people to more than one list if you wish. Repeat for each contact in your “All Friends” screen. This process goes very quickly, and you don’t need to save your changes.

Step 2. Create Privacy Settings for Your Friend Groups

facebook-privacyGo to Facebook’s Settings menu and select the Privacy Settings dropdown option. Click Profile, then click the Contact Information tab. Next to the Mobile Phone listing, click the dropdown and select “Customize.” In the popup window that appears, select the “Some Friends” button, then type the name of the list of those who should see this data in the text box marked “Type the name of a friend or friend list.”

While you’re in this screen, you’ll probably want to select “None of My Networks,” since if you select a network, anyone in that network, even if they aren’t a friend, can see your information. And note that you can block specific people or lists from seeing this specific item by typing their names into the “Except These People” box. When you’re done, you’ll need to click “Save,” then “Save Changes” on the Profile Information screen.

Step 3. Edit Your Profile

From the main Facebook menu, click Profile. Underneath your picture at the upper left of the page, click “Edit My Profile.” Click the Info tab, then scroll down and click the gray “Contact Information” bar. Next to “Mobile Phone,” add your phone number in the format shown. Click “Save Changes,” then scroll back to the top of the contact data and click the Done Editing button.

facebook-view-profileIt’s sort of annoying that one has to go through so many steps to make such a simple change, but Facebook does provide a useful tool to make sure you’ve done everything correctly. Near the top of the Settings -> Privacy Settings -> Profile page, enter a friend’s name in the box marked “See how a friend sees your profile” and your profile will be displayed as that person sees it. You’ll see what groups and networks the person belongs to, and you’ll be offered a link to re-edit your privacy settings if necessary.

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If your school or office firewall has blocked Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, Gmail, or Yahoo email you may be able to use a few internet privacy tricks get get around the firewall and access any website you want.

The easy way: Try Firefox to get around the firewall

administrators may automatically apply to Internet Explorer each time you use it. More importantly, Firefox has built-in proxy-connection settings, which when used with settings that you can get from an anonymous web surfing or anonymizer service, can allow you to get to virtually any website you want even if it is blocked by a firewall. Firefox has several other features such as Google-integration for faster searches, automatic pop-up blockers and more. Firefox is free.

Get to Facebook from work or school, even through a firewall by using an Anonymizer or Private web surfing site

For years internet privacy experts have been using anonymizers, private web-surfing services and other identity hiding software or services to get to websites privately.

These anonymizers and Anonymous web surfing services are usually used to hide your tracks while surfing the internet, making it impossible for anyone to trace what web-pages you have visited - but you can also use anonymizers to access Facebook or other websites at school or work blocked by firewalls. These anonymous web surfing services when used together with Firefox will usually let you get around any firewall.

Most web-proxy services or anonymizers are not free, but many do offer partial service for free or a free trial period, which might work for you depending on what type of firewall your school uses.
You may have to try a few different internet anonymous web surfing services to see which one works best with the firewall that your school or office has. Most of these services do not require you to install any software on the computer you're using at. You simply log into their website from work or school, then use the service to get to Myspace or whatever websites your school or business firewall is blocking. You can use these services with or without Firefox.

How an anonymizer gets around a firewall

An anonymizer or Private web-surfing service gets around your school's firewall by setting up a connection between your computer and the anonymizer service, so the firewall only sees the connection from you to them. The anonymizer's computers then connect to Facebook (or Hotmail, Friendster, Hi5, etc) with their internet connection and send the data back to you. To the school's firewall it looks like your computer is connecting to the anonymizer's web address and not Facebook.com (or whatever website you're trying to get to).

Some schools block anonymizers and anonymous web surfing sites, especially the free ones, so you may have to try a few different ones to find one that works

The I.T. guys at your school might be smart enough to configure their firewall to block the common anonymizer and private web-surfing websites and services right along with blocking Facebook. Lucky for you, there are LOTS of different internet-privacy and anonymizer services to choose from! Just keep trying different ones until you find one that works with the firewall settings at your school.

There are no guarantees

You might only have to try one or two different anonyimizers or web-proxy services before you can connect to Facebook.com from school. You might also try 50 and never find one that works if your school's firewall is really good. The only way to find it is to try. WARNING: The use of web-proxies or anonymizers to bypass firewalls might be against the rules at your school or work. If anonymizers are against the rules, use them at your own risk or don't use them at all!