Hi Wanda! If you’re receiving alerts from Facebook about login attempts on your account, and it wasn’t you, that’s a problem. The good news is that there’s still time to stop would-be hackers from cracking your Facebook account. Here are five things you need to do right away, starting with…

Change your password

If you suspect someone is trying to log into your Facebook account, change your password, pronto.

Just click the little downward arrow on any Facebook web page, click Settings, click Security and Login in the left column, then click the Edit button next to Change Password.

So, what should your new password be? Ideally, it should be at least 10 characters, including a mix of letters, numbers and symbols, and you should avoid recognizable words. If that sounds like a royal pain, a password manager can offer some much-needed assistance.

Bonus tip: You can perform most of these security tips on the iOS and Android versions of the Facebook app. To get started on iOS, tap the More button in the bottom corner of the Facebook app, tap Settings, then Account Settings. For Android, tap the three-line More button in the top-right corner of the app, then tap Account Settings.

Related: How to view everything you’ve ever liked on Facebook

Turn on login notifications

Even the strongest of strong passwords won’t stop a determined hacker from sneaking into your Facebook account, and that’s where this next security precaution comes in handy.

You can set Facebook to warn you whenever someone logs into your account from an “unrecognized” device—something other than the laptop, phone, or desktop PC that you use for Facebook each day.

Click the downward arrow in the top-right corner of any Facebook page, click Settings, then click Security and Login in the left column.

Next, in the Setting Up Extra Security section, click the Edit button next to Get alerts about unrecognized logins, then specify how you’d like to get your alerts, including via email, text, or Facebook web alerts.

Related: Put posts from your besties at the top of your Facebook news feed

Log out of Facebook sessions that you don’t recognize

Got a funny feeling someone else is using your Facebook account? There’s an easy way to view all your active and recent Facebook sessions, and log out of some or all of them.

When you log out of a Facebook session, anyone using that session will be unceremoniously logged out—and if you’ve just changed your Facebook password, they won’t be able to log in again.

Click the downward arrow in the top-right corner of any Facebook page, click Settings, click Security and Login in the left column, then check out the Where You’re Logged In section.

If you see any sessions you don’t recognize (make sure to click the See More link to see all your open sessions at once), click the three-dot button next to the session and click Log Out (to simply log out that individual session) or Not You? (which will take you through a series of steps to secure your Facebook account.

To log out of all your open Facebook sessions at once, click the Log Out Of All Sessions link at the very bottom of the list.

Related: How to keep the world from seeing your Facebook friends list

Turn on two-factor authentication

One of the best ways to keep hackers out of your Facebook account is by enabling a second layer of security above and beyond your password.

With two-factor authentication switched on, anyone who tries to log into your Facebook account from an unknown device will have to have to have a second code besides your password.

There are a variety of different ways to get the second code, which is generated by Facebook and different every time. You can get them delivered via text message, or using a “code generator” on the Facebook for iOS or Android app, which gives you a new authentication code every 30 seconds. You can also print out a series of 10 codes that you can keep in a safe place, handy if you’re travelling. Last but not least, you can use a U2F security key, which lets you authenticate yourself using a USB stick.

To get started, return to the Security and Login section (click the downward arrow, click Settings, then click Security and Login), then click the Edit button next to “Use two-factor authentication.”

Now, go ahead and enable the two-factor authentication you’d prefer to use. (If you’re familiar with the Facebook for iOS or Android apps, I recommend the Code Generator option.)

Related: View your Facebook profile as strangers see it

Pick some “trusted contacts”

Let’s say the worst happens: a hacker breaks into your Facebook account and changes your password, effectively locking you out. Now what?

Well, you can always ask Facebook for help, but you’ll have to convince them you’re you before they let you back into your account. If you plan ahead, though, you can save yourself the hassle.

Facebook’s “trusted contacts” feature lets you pick three to five Facebook friends that (you guessed it) you trust completely. If you lose control of your Facebook account, you can call your trusted Facebook friends, who can then help you regain access your Facebook profile.

Click the downward arrow in the top-right corner of any Facebook page, click Settings, click Security and Login, then click the Edit button next to Choose 3 to 5 friends to contact if you get logged out.

Facebook will notify anyone you add to your “trusted” list that you’ve picked them as a trusted contact, although they won’t get alerted if you remove them from your list.

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If you’ve lost track of your various Facebook likes over the years, a quick trip to your “Activity Log” on Facebook will jog your memory. Want to “unlike” an old “like,” or hide a liked Facebook fan page from your profile? You can do that, too.

Here’s what you do…

You can unlike anything you’ve previously “liked” using Facebook’s Activity Log.

On iOS or Android

First, visit your Facebook profile. Tap the three-line menu button in the corner of the screen (the bottom-right corner for iOS, or the top-right for Android), then tap your name at the top of the menu.

Next, tap the Activity Log button just below your profile image; doing so will take you to a screen with a long list of months and years. Tap one, and you’ll see a log of all your activity on Facebook for that particular date range.

Related: How to view your Facebook timeline as strangers see it

Since we only want to see “likes,” we’re going to do a little filtering. Tap the Filter button near the top of the screen, then tap Likes.

Now, back at the main Activity Log screen, tap a date to see everything you “liked” in a given month or year. To unlike something, tap the little down-arrow on the right side of an item, then tap Unlike. If the thing you liked was a Facebook fan page, you’ll also have the option to hide the “like” from your timeline.

With a little help from the Activity Log, you can hide a “liked” Facebook fan page from your profile.

On a desktop

Just as on mobile, the first step to viewing all your Facebook likes is to visit your profile page. To get there, tap your name in the blue stripe at the top of any Facebook page.

Once you’ve reached your profile, click the View Activity Log button to the right of your profile image. To filter your log so you’re only seeing the stuff you liked, click the Likes button in the left column of the screen.

Related: How to unfriend a Facebook friend without really unfriending them

See all your Facebook likes? Perfect. To unlike something, click the little Edit button (the one that looks like a pencil) on the right side of an item’s entry—and just as you can on mobile, you’ll have the option to hide a liked Facebook fan page from your profile.

Click here for more Facebook tips!

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As it turns out, I’ve granted more than 30 (!) apps and websites access to my Facebook profile over the years. Some of them were games that I haven’t played in ages (remember Words With Friends?), others were apps that I’d tried once or twice and then immediately forgot (like Shareagift), and still others were apps with social features that I never use (like the ability to share my Netflix viewing history with Facebook friends—no thanks).

If you don’t want a specific app to have access to your Facebook account (including such personal info as your username, your gender, the Facebook networks you’ve joined, and your friends list), there’s an easy way to yank its Facebook privileges. Of course, doing so may log you out of the app and/or disable some social features.

You can cut off an app’s access to your Facebook account directly from your Android or iOS device.

Don’t want any apps or websites poking around your Facebook profile? If so, you can slam the door on all of them at once.

Here’s what you do…

On iOS and Android:

• Open the Facebook app, tap the three-line menu button (in the lower-right corner for iOS, or the top-right on Android), then tap Settings, Account Settings, and Apps.
• To see a list of all the apps and websites that you’ve granted access to your Facebook account, tap “Logged in with Facebook.” Tap an app to change the type of Facebook data the app can see (such as your friends list or your email address), or tap Remove App to cut off all its access.
• If you don’t want any apps or websites accessing your Facebook account, tap Platform (from the Apps and Websites screen), tap Edit (under the Apps and Websites heading), then tap Turn off Platform. Once that’s done, all your Facebook apps will be deactivated, and you won’t be able to add any more to your profile. Have a change of heart? Never fear—you can always turn Facebook’s Platform feature back on again.

Once you deactivate Facebook’s Platform feature, no third-party apps or websites will be able to access your Facebook profile.

On a desktop web browser:

• Visit Facebook in your browser, click the little downward arrow in the top-right corner of the page, click Settings, then click Apps in the left column.
• On the next screen, you’ll see a list of all the apps and websites that you’ve granted access to your Facebook account. Click an app or site to inspect or change what it can access, or click the little “x” next to its name to delete it.
• To cut off Facebook access to all apps and websites, click the Edit button under the Apps, Websites and Plugins heading, then click the blue Disable Platform button.

Click here for more Facebook tips!

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Here’s what you do: Go to your Facebook news feed in your desktop browser, hover your mouse over a friend’s name, then hover over the Following button and select the “See First” option.

You can add a “See First” tag to a friend on the web version of Facebook, or from the Facebook apps for iOS and Android.

Once that’s done, posts from the Facebook friend you just flagged will always appear at the top of your Facebook news feed, regardless of what Facebook’s secret “Top Stories” algorithm says.

Related: How to see more of your besties in your Facebook news feed

You can also click the Settings button (the one that looks like a down-arrow) in the top-right corner of the page, select News Feed Preferences, then click Prioritize Who to See First. That’ll take you to a list of all the Facebook friends and pages you follow; just click a friend or a page to give them a “See First” flag.

To perform the “See First” trick on the Facebook app for iOS or Android, tap the name of a friend in your news feed (which takes you to their profile page), tap the Following button, then tap See First.

To choose See First buddies from a big list of Facebook friends on your iOS device, tap the “More” button in the bottom-right corner of the screen, then tap Settings, News Feed Preferences, Prioritize Who to See First.

For Android, tap the More button (in the top-right corner of the screen, not the bottom-right), scroll down and tap News Feed Preferences (no need to tap Settings), and finally tap Prioritize Who to See First.

Click here for more Facebook tips!

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Click the blue “Play” button next to the Preview heading to hear how your name will sound to your profile visitors.

Just go to your Facebook profile, click the About tab (just below your name), click Details About You in the left column, then click “How do you pronounce your name?”

When you do, Facebook will serve up a variety of ways to pronounce your name (both first and last) choose the ones that work best, or write your own. You can also click the little blue “Play” button next to each option to hear how the pronunciation will sound to your profile visitors.

Once you’re finished, click the Play button next to the Preview heading for a final listen. Sound good? Then click Save Changes.

Now, head back to the main Facebook profile screen—and when you do, you’ll see the proper pronunciation of your name listen in the Intro section, up near the top of the page.

Click here for more Facebook tips!

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Hi John! If you “like” a fan page on Facebook, the owner of that page will (of course) see that you’ve liked it, and there’s nothing stopping them from clicking through to your Facebook profile and checking out whatever’s publicly viewable on your page—including, potentially, your Facebook Friends list.

You can set the privacy setting for your Facebook Friends list to anything from “Public” to “Only Me.”

As with most everything on your Facebook profile (a.k.a. your “Timeline”), the privacy settings on your Friends list can be tweaked—and with the right setting, no one will be able to see your Friends list, including the owners of Facebook pages you’ve liked.

To check who can see your Friends list—and, if necessary, lock down its privacy settings—here’s what you do…

• Visit Facebook on a desktop browser, go to your profile page (click your name in the top-right corner of the screen), scroll down to the Friends module in the left column, and click the “Friends” heading.
• Now, you should be looking at a big list of your Facebook friends. In the top-right corner of the list, there should be an “Edit Privacy” button; go ahead and click it.
• Click the pull-down menu under the “Who can see your friend list?” heading and pick a setting—anything from “Public” or “Friends” to “Only Me.”

All done? Then let’s test. Go back to your main profile page, click the three-dot menu button in the top-right corner of the page, then click “View As.”

When you do, you’ll see your Facebook profile as strangers see it. If you set your Friends list privacy setting to “Friends” or “Only Me,” your Friends list will be hidden—and yes, that applies to the owners of any Facebook pages you’ve liked. (Remember, you only “liked” their pages; you never added them as friends.)

Bonus tip

If you haven’t done so already, Facebook offers a handy “privacy checkup” feature that’ll guide you through the most important Facebook privacy settings. On Facebook for desktop, just click the padlock icon on the top-right corner of the screen and select “Privacy Checkup.” On the Facebook app, tap the “More” button (either in the bottom-right corner of the screen on iOS, or the top-right corner for Android), tap Privacy Shortcuts, then tap Privacy Checkup.

Click here for more Facebook tips!

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Facebook’s “View As” feature not only lets you see how the world sees your timeline, it can also show you how your timeline looks through the eyes of a specific friend.

Click the three-dot button and select “View As” to see your timeline as others see it.

It’s a handy way to see, for example, whether your updates, photo albums, and friends are viewable by complete strangers—or, say, a Facebook frenemy on your “Restricted” list.

Here’s what you do…

• Go to your Facebook public profile by clicking your name in the top-right corner of any Facebook page.
• Next, click the little three-dot button in the bottom-right corner of your “cover” photo, then select “View As” from the drop-down menu.
• You should now see your timeline as most people on Facebook see it—that is, anyone on Facebook who isn’t your friend. See anything public info that you’d rather keep private? If so, you can change the privacy settings for any post by clicking the icon right next to the date. You may also want to go back to your privacy settings (click the padlock icon in the top-right corner of the page, then select Privacy Checkup) and start tweaking.
• Want to see your timeline as a specific friend sees it? From the “View As” version of your timeline, click the “View as Specific Person” link in the black strip along the top of the page, then type the name of one of your Facebook friends. Again, take a close look to see if a given friend can see anything on your timeline they shouldn’t.
• All done? Click the little “x” in the black strip to return to the standard timeline view.

Click here for more Facebook tips!

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Connie writes: I hid the ticker on Facebook when it was first introduced. Now, I want it back. I’ve searched online, but none of the fixes I found work for me. Just wondering if you may have a solution? Thanks for your help.

Hi Connie! Yep, I did the same thing when the Facebook ticker first came out: I switched it off. After all, who needs a constant stream of friend activity scrolling in the sidebar?

After awhile, though, I too began to miss it—and besides, it seems that Facebook make a few key changes to its secret sauce for the news feed ticker.

No longer a relentlessly marching scroll, the Facebook ticker now sits unobtrusively in the corner of the screen, displaying a handful of enticing news-feed tidbits that I frequently find myself clicking on.

Want to hide the Facebook ticker? Just click the Hide Sidebar setting.

Anyway, back to your question, Connie: how do you unhide the ticker (which shares space with Facebook chat in the Sidebar)?

Before we get there, let’s back up for a minute.

How to hide the Facebook ticker

OK, so how do you hide the Facebook ticker in the first place? Easily done.

Go to the very bottom of the sidebar, find and click the Settings button (it’s the gear-shaped one), then select Hide Sidebar; that’ll make both the ticker and the chat interface disappear.

Note: There used to be a “Hide Ticker” option that hid the Ticker without losing the Chat sidebar, but that setting seems to have disappeared (for now, anyway). Also gone: a little divider that you could drag over the ticker, effectively hiding it.

Have second thoughts about hiding the ticker? You can get it back with a single click.

How to turn the Facebook ticker back on

Just click the “Chat” button the bottom-right corner of the page; when you do, the Sidebar—complete with the ticker—will spring open.

Still don’t see the ticker? Keep in mind that the Facebook sidebar will hide itself automatically if your browser window is too small. Try expanding the window until the Sidebar appears.

Update: Connie wrote back to report that even after following the steps above, she still couldn’t find the ticker. The reason? Hard to say.

One possibility is that the ticker doesn’t appear for those with fewer than 100 or so Facebook friends (as is the case with Connie). It’s also possible that her screen resolution simply won’t allow for a large enough browser window.

Finally, remember that Facebook is constantly testing, moving, tweaking and removing features, and in some cases only a subset of users may see the changes. Recently (as in November 2017), I’ve noticed that the ticker has been disappearing and reappearing without explanation, even though the chat sidebar is still visible. In other words, if the Facebook ticker isn’t showing up in your browser, you’re probably not alone.

For more Facebook tips, click here.

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But at the risk of showing my age (I haven’t been 25 in about 20 years), I’m often scratching my head at the alphabet soup of acronyms found in more and more posts on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and even the good, old-fashioned comments section.

“FTW!” they say, or “TIL!” Or maybe the “OP” really meant this, or a lengthy post might end with a brow-furrowing “TL;DR,” followed by a brief synopsis.

Say what?

Before you head for Google, I’ll save you the trouble and spill the beans on six of social acronyms I’m most often asked about, starting with…

1. FTW

Stands for: “For the win!”

What it means: A cheerful, triumphant acronym that celebrates something—almost anything, really—that absolutely hit the ball out of the park.

Usage: “What makes the best coffee, you ask? French press FTW!!!”

2. FML

Stands for: “[Four-letter word that rhymes with “duck”] my life!”

What it means: Something bad—anything from a hangnail to a pink slip—happened to you. As it always does.

Usage: “I was running late for work, so I took a warp-speed shower, threw on my clothes, got my kid ready for school in record time…only to discover that I’d locked my keys in my car. FML!”

3. IMHO

Stands for: “In my humble opinion”

What it means: Nope, you’re no expert, and you’re not trying to offend anyone. You’re just tossing out your two cents—and fingers crossed, you won’t draw too many angry comments in the process. Sometimes tinged with a hint of sarcasm.

Usage: “IMHO, our fearless leader totally blew it when he cancelled casual Fridays.”

4. TIL

Stands for: “Today I learned”

What it means: Here’s a funny, surprising, or otherwise notable fact that you just picked up and want to share with the world.

Usage: “TIL that a pound of any combination of dimes, quarters, and half-dollars is worth $20.”

5. TL;DR

Stands for: “Too long, didn’t read”

What it means: Sometimes at the end of a lengthy post, comment, or rant, the author (or a helpful commenter) will boil everything down to a small, easily digestible nugget.

Usage (in this example, after five blood-drenched paragraphs about how he’s sick of his office mates leaving the coffee pot empty): “TL;DR If you’re pouring the last cup of coffee, make another pot for everyone else. Thank you.”

6. OP

Stands for: “Original poster”

What it means: Referring back to whoever wrote the original post on a given (and typically lengthy message thread.

Usage: “I think what OP was trying to say was that Cyrus should’ve known all along he was being set up.”

So … got more confounding social acronyms to share? Let me know!

Update: Here’s another great acronym submitted by reader Diana…

TTFN

Stands for: Tah, tah for now

What it means: I’m signing off now. It’s
casual, like ‘later, gator’, gotta go’ or ‘cheers’.

It is used when you want to sign off but not say love or love you.

Usage: Running late. TTFN

Image credit: phozographer, via Flickr; Creative Commons license 2.0.

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