If you have just created a new Facebook account, by default the Facebook users that are not your friend would not be able to view your Facebook profile. They would see a message that says “Raymond only shares some of his profile information with everyone. If you know Raymond, send him a message or add him as a friend.” Since people couldn’t even see anything on your profile unless they are your friend, logically they can’t see your private photos or albums too right? Only half right…

There is one working javascript hack that has been discovered more than a month ago which allows anyone to view Facebook private photo and album without being in the friend list. All the user needs to do is login to their Facebook account first, then go to the main user profile page and paste the javascript below at the address bar and hit enter.

javascript:(function(){CSS.removeClass(document.body,%20'profile_two_columns'); tab_controller.changePage("photos");})()

When it works, it shows the Facebook album photos instantly and if not, you get the error message “There are no photos to display. Photos of Raymond may not have been tagged, or may not be visible due to privacy.” I have done more tests and found that this is caused by a privacy setting in Facebook allowing “EVERYONE” to view photos and videos of the user.

Fortunately there is a fix to protect your privacy and prevent anyone from viewing your private album photos in Facebook. Simply follow the steps below on how to configure a more strict privacy setting for your Facebook profile.

1. Login to your Facebook account
2. Click on Account at the top right and select Privacy Settings
3. Click on Profile Information
4. Select either Only Friends or Friends of Friends for Photos and Videos of Me.

To me, this does seemed like a bug and Facebook should definitely fix it. Even if the user did configure that everyone can view their album/photo, but if their profile is set to private, the same should happen for the album photos too. Found any friend that didn’t have their photo protected? Let them know about it while waiting for Facebook fix the bug.