One Facebook privacy setting you REALLY should change

If you’ve been on Facebook a good while, you know how tedious it is to wade through all the privacy settings available to you. It doesn’t help that Facebook has been receiving tremendous heat regarding its supposed lack of empathy for their user’s privacy, but if you’re going to have to change just one privacy setting, this is it.

It’s no secret that hijacking your account (not just on Facebook) is so-easy-your-dog-could-do-it, but it’s also no secret that a critical precaution you can take to safeguard your online accounts is to access your websites via the HTTPS protocol (as opposed to the old-school vanilla HTTP). Problem was, Facebook didn’t offer users the option to access the site in HTTPS — until now.

This particular setting can be changed by going to Account > Account Settings on your Facebook page, then going on down to the Account Security group of settings. Make sure that the Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible option is checked.

Facebook's HTTPS security settings (image from Valleywag)

If you don’t see this set of options just yet, don’t worry; it will take a while for Facebook to cascade these options to every single user. Facebook promises to roll it out to everyone within 24 hours though.