How to remove annoying ads from Facebook and other pages

If you started seeing some large ads on Facebook, you need to uninstall "text-enhance" from your browsers.  Meanwhile, Facebook stock keeps sliding on its 3rd day of trading.

Google+ challenges Facebook in social networking

Online search giant Google has launched a new social networking website in its latest attempt to take on Facebook, which now claims more than 500m users.  Google+ allows individuals to share photos, messages and comments but also integrates the company's maps and images into the service.

It also aims to help users easily organise contacts within groups.

But some analysts say Google has simply reproduced features of Facebook while adding a video chat function.

Google, which handles roughly two out of every three internet searches in the US, has taken several stabs at Facebook in recent years.

But its previous efforts ended in failure, with both Google Wave and Google Buzz proving unpopular with users.

New functions
The company is now boasting that four features in Google+ could help make the company a permanent player in social networking:

• Circles - a functionality that allows individuals to place friends into groups, allowing users to share different forms of content with targeted clusters of friends
• Hangouts - live multi-user video conferencing that permits friends to drop in and out of live group conversations
• Huddle - group instant messaging
• Sparks - a feature that connects individuals on the network to others with common interests.
• The current version of Google+ has only been released to a small number of users, but the company has said it soon hopes to make the social network available to the millions of individuals that use its services each day.

Great News : France Bans the Words “Twitter” and “Facebook” From Airwaves

Here's something you won't hear on French television news today: "For more information on the U.S. trial of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, follow us on Twitter."


French regulators have banned the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” from French TV and radio unless those words are used to refer to the companies themselves in news stories. 


The regulator, France’s Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel, says that it is "clandestine" advertising to use the names otherwise, violating a 1992 decree stipulating that commercial enterprises should not be promoted on news programs.


Christine Kelly, an advisor to France’s Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel reasons, “Why should we promote a network that is worth billions of dollars like Facebook and not for another one that is having a hard time getting known?”

Test Your Facebook Privacy Settings: Here's How

The one-stop privacy fix-up tool for your Facebook profile.

The Facebook Privacy Scanner

The tool is called ReclaimPrivacy, and its name pretty much tells you what you need to know. Using it is simple: Just surf over to ReclaimPrivacy.organd look for the link that says "Scan for Privacy." Add that link as a bookmark in your browser, either by dragging it onto a bookmark toolbar or by right-clicking it and selecting the "Bookmark" option.

Now head over to Facebook. Sign into your account, then open the bookmarked link.

This will cause ReclaimPrivacy's Facebook privacy scanner to open right at the top of your current Facebook window. Within a few seconds, ReclaimPrivacy will scan through six areas of potential privacy concern and let you know how your account stacks up.

ReclaimPrivacy analyzes everything from your personal information controls to your "instant personalization" settings. It even checks account settings that affect what your friends could inadvertently share about you without your knowledge.

For each area, ReclaimPrivacy will give you a green ("good"), yellow ("caution"), or red ("insecure") ranking. If you hit yellow or red, it'll provide you with specific steps to fix the problem so you don't have to waste time searching for the right setting.

After seeing some of the very personal details now floating around out there (hint: someone lost their virginity this weekend), that's one function well-worth "liking."