14 DAY TRIAL // With 600 million users and counting, it's perhaps understandable that Facebook is very concerned about security and privacy issues. The site is now introducing several new tools and enhancements which should improve the standard in both cases.
"Safety has always been a social experience: as friends and family, we look out for each other and pass along advice to help each other stay safe. Safety on Facebook works the same way," Facebook's Arturo Bejar writes.
"By keeping each other informed, people make Facebook a more trusted environment. Today, we're making it easier to stay safe with the launch of new safety resources, tools for reporting issues and additional security features," he announced.
Facebook is introducing a new Family Safety Center with resources for parents, teachers and teenagers alike. There are plenty of articles about what Facebook is doing to promote a safe environment or how you can protect yourself and your children.
There are also quick links and explanations for the various tools and settings you can use to make your account safer.
A new Social Reporting Tool has been introduced, which makes it easier to contact someone close to you, perhaps a teacher, to help in a bullying situation or similar cases.
Facebook is also working on more technical approaches to ensure your account and data stays safe, it's starting to implement two-factor authentication and has introduced a better implementation of its HTTPS support.
Two Factor Authentication requires that you also provide a code when you log in on a new computer or device, besides your account credentials. This code can be generated by an application or sent via SMS, though Facebook hasn't provided any details about its implementation yet.
The feature is being rolled out but only to a select few, so it may be a while before you have access to it.
Facebook is also making a small but crucial change to the way its support for the HTTPS protocol works. Until now, Facebook apps didn't work over HTTPS, so you had to revert to an unsecure connection to use one.
You still can't use apps with HTTPS, but now, the protocol is automatically enabled again once you finish with the app, something that, inexplicably, didn't happen before.