Have you ever found yourself locked out of your home and turned to a pal with whom you've entrusted a spare key?
That's pretty much the idea behind one of Facebook's two new updates to their ever-expanding security settings. It's called Trusted Friends and it lets a selected group of your Facebook buddies bail you out in case you're ever locked out of your account.
You can initiate the feature by choosing three to five friends, each of whom will receive a private security code sent by Facebook. That way, if you're locked out of your account or forget your password and can't retrieve it through e-mail, your pack of SuperFriends can save the day.
According to Facebook, "We will send codes to the friends you have selected and they can pass along that information to you."
So that's clutch. Another, less tangible, benefit? What Trusted Friend wouldn't be flattered to know you've tabbed them for your inner circle? Building friendships: it's just what Facebook does.
The feature isn't yet available, but Facebook says they'll be testing it out over the next few weeks.
The second new security update is the introduction of separate passwords for third party apps hooked up to your Facebook account -- think Spotify, Xbox or other products you log into using your Facebook credentials.
In this case, you'd use the unique password -- not your Facebook password -- to log into these programs.
The company posted that "this is especially helpful if you have opted into Login Approvals, for which security codes don't always work when using third party applications."
So what are Login Approvals? They're basically a security feature you can opt into which requires that you enter a code whenever trying to access your account from an unrecognized computer or device.
Unlike Trusted Friends, this App Passwords update is available right now. You can get there by clicking to your Account Settings, then selecting the Security tab and choosing App Passwords.
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