Facebook has become the largest social networking website in recent years. But with increase in the number of Facebook users, the scam links being posted on Facebook have also increased. The security blog of many security software vendors is full of Facebook scam reports. Now you can block such scam posts and malware links on Facebook with the help of free Using Protection service.
Using Protection is a simple web browser add-on that disables spam and virus links on the Facebook pages you view. Using Protection add-on is available for Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can visit http://usingprotection.com/postit.html and get links for installing the Using Protection add-on. You will have to tell them the e-mail address and optionally post on your Facebook about the Using Protction add-on. Then they will give you links to the add-on.
After the add-on is installed, it stays inactive and does nothing until you visit Facebook. As soon as you visit a Facebook page in your web browser, Using Protection springs up and comes into action. At this point the status bar shows Scanning Facebook Page.
Everytime you visit a page on Facebook or reload it, Using Protection scans all the links on that page and disables all the malicious links. It then chages the link text to SPAM DETECTED or VIRUS DETECTED as shown. If you click on these links, you would post a message that you have found a virus or scam link on this friend’s facebook wall.
This add-on inserts a new menu item in the Tools menu of the Firefox browser using which you can report a new scam on Facebook to the Using Protection team so that they can block it for every Using Protection user.
If you are a regular Facebook user, then you should be using the Using Protection add-on. Next time, if your friends asks you what you do to stay safe on Facebook, you can tell them that you are Using Protection.