Facebook - a review

Its been sometime since i switched to the new Timeline in Facebook. Recently, i decided to check my privacy settings, and make the required changes. As a thumb rule, i check my Facebook privacy settings at least once every month. This was for the first time i was doing so after selecting the nuisance called Timeline. I found multiple changes



Firstly, i noticed that the viewing policies in the lists were changed. Previously, we could easily withhold friends in a specific list to not to view friends from a specific list. Now, this is not possible.



Secondly, it took me a lot of time in finding where was the 'view as' button. Facebook has this feature where you can see what would be your profile's view to a particular friend when he/she opens it. Earlier it used to be on the Privacy settings page. It took me almost a couple of hours, as i had never tried it on Timeline. Yes, it is now very well placed, but because people have been using that feature for two years now, it took me time to find it. Anyhow, i've learnt it now, and yes it is convenient than earlier.



Thirdly, i found one major issue. You can tag a geographical location on the maps page or the home page, but you can remove it from your Timeline only, and still it won't get removed completely. I had tagged such, and i had to access Facebook from a mobile's Opera Mini browser to remove it. Pretty troublesome.


Fourthly, any photo that you share can be downloaded. A few years back, they had this feature where the picture audience could not download it by right clicking. But then,dragging the photo to the comments box or even to the address bar would show the direct URL for the photo. Hi5 had worked on it, and embedded it on the page in such a way that nobody could download it, or view its direct URL in any way. Facebook should implement it and not turn its face away.


Finally, and the most repeated complain of mine - why does Facebook have to make pages so heavy? If you cannot implement Ajax well, why waste effort on it. Google Plus has a brilliant Ajax implementation. Its just that people are so hooked to Facebook, and the Orkut'ish feeling that Google Plus gives is what make people stay there.



Facebook should make Timeline optional. It has been a pain for my wireless internet, as well as for my eyes ever since i committed the mistake of taking a preview.