Make a Clean Sweep

Rockmelt for iPad

iOS

This gives users a unique browsing experience by integrating feeds from various websites on its homepage. It is designed for users who don’t like to type web addresses.

When they were introduced,Facebook apps were quite popular. Many joined because Orkut had become “boring” and apps made Facebook much more “interesting”. You could take a Harry Potter quiz and show off your score,take relationship compatibility quizzes or boast of your Mafia Wars achievements.

Many of us didn’t want to sign up for every new website we liked,so we just used the “sign in with Facebook/Twitter/Google” option,unwittingly granting the website access to our profiles. Like every other fad,this one slowly died,but by then many had given tonnes of apps access to their profiles and few bothered to dig through endless settings to clear them out. What people didn’t realise is how unsafe this could be. Ask yourself: if a stranger caught you at the bus stop and asked you about your birthday,or details about your friends,would you tell him/her? Clearly not. This is why you might want to try these browser add-ons.

MyPermissions Cleaner

You can either visit mypermissions.org or install the add-on. The website will show you popular icons: Facebook,Twitter,Google,Yahoo,LinkedIn,Dropbox,Instagram,Foursquare,Windows Live,AOL and Flickr. Click whichever you use,and it will take you to the relevant settings page. Log in and revoke access for apps you do not need. If your activity has mostly been on Facebook,then you probably want to install the add-on — MyPermissions Cleaner. It works best with Chrome.

After you install the add-on,you will see a green shield icon next to the address bar. Click it and you will be given an option to sign in to Facebook. You will have to grant MyPermissions access to your account for this to work. You will also have to create a MyPermissions account,another slight annoyance.

Once you have signed in,the add-on will show you a “Scan My Permissions” button. Click that and you will see a list of apps that have access to your profile. At the top,a list of permissions will be listed,telling you how many apps can access what. Below that,you will see a “Nuke all intrusive apps” button. That’s if you want to delete all junk on your profile. It’s best if you take a look at each app before you remove it. You can also mark some apps as “trusted” if you don’t want them to show up in the add-on’s red zone. You can use the report button to tell MyPermissions that an app is not trustworthy. If you use an iPhone,MyPermissions Cleaner is available on the App Store for free.

Social Fixer

You can find this add-on at http://www.socialfixer.com. As its name suggests,it tries to fix your Facebook experience. It is compatible with almost all popular browsers. After you install the add-on,you will see a set-up wizard. If you are adept at combing through a long list of options,choose “Minimalist Installation”,otherwise opt for “Recommended Settings”. Click on the wrench icon on Facebook’s blue top bar to customise. Social Fixer takes pride in being able to change Facebook to the way you like it. You can disable the new lightbox photo viewer,increase font size,see who has removed you from their friend list,etc. Other useful options include removing the chat box and tweaking timeline view. This add-on is recommended if you cannot stand the changes to Facebook,but it can mess it up too. For instance,the wrench icon pushes the home and settings buttons out of the blue bar. If you don’t store history and cookies,the add-on runs its set-up wizard every time you open the browser. Facebook keeps changing its code,which often breaks Social Fixer. But the developer updates the add-on regularly to keep it working.