Continued from part two.
"But I'm not sure I can remove my stalker from my friends list!" is another popular concern. "We have mutual friends; what if they lie to them by telling them that I'm secretly really mean?" Proof usually trumps rumor-mongering. Before removing your stalker, I want you to take screenshots of what they said or did which made you decide to remove them. Copying their text isn't good enough; your stalker could claim that you're lying about them saying those things. I know that photos can also be forged, but considering that it usually takes hundreds of times longer to masterfully edit a photo without a single pixel being out of place to make it seem like someone said something they didn't - and taking into account that you may not have the skills to do this - it's unlikely that anyone will believe your stalker if they say "Those pictures are photoshopped!"
"But I don't know how to take screenshots..." Say "hello" to option one,
one of the most useful programs you'll ever use: puush. This allows you to take screenshots of anything, almost anytime. After you register an account (don't forget to write down your puush email address and password in that username-and-password text file you've made!) and download puush, you're ready to start using it. I've changed most of the default keybinds on mine, but to give you an example of how it works, you can press ctrl+shift+3 to take a picture of your entire screen. To view - and change - your keybinds, open puush by double clicking its white arrow icon in your tool tray, then click the Key Bindings tab at the top.
Keep in mind that puush screenshots (which can be viewed by going to your Account tab and clicking the My Account button) are all deleted from your account after about thirty days, unless you pay for longer lasting storage. If you're not interested in paying, I recommend taking screenshots, and when you think one is important enough to use again in the future, access that specific screenshot in whichever web browser you prefer, right click it, and save it to your computer. I also recommend changing your Capture current window keybind to something which only requires one hand, like left shift+tab, so you may use it very frequently with as little hassle as possible.
"Sometimes puush's servers are offline, or I have other problems concerning it." Then here's option two:
the PrtScr key in the top-right corner of your keyboard. This will allow you to take screenshots of your entire screen, with or without a working internet connection. Imagine that while you're on a computer, you have an invisible clipboard on standby, waiting to take down one piece of information. Whenever you copy something - such as a single word, fifty pages worth of text, or a picture - that information is temporarily stored on that invisible clipboard. That is how the PrtScr key works. A picture of your entire screen overwrites any other information you may have previously had waiting on your clipboard, and you can paste that picture (as in the "paste" portion of the phrase "copy and paste") into an image editing program, such as MS paint.
It's important to note that your clipboard can only contain one set of information at a time, so if you copy some text after pressing the PrtScr key, your picture will be deleted and replaced by the text you chose. After pressing PrtScr, you should open MS paint - or any other image editing program of your choice - and press ctrl+v as soon as possible, in order to paste a picture of what your screen looked like when you pressed PrtScr, and of course, save the picture immediately. (Ctrl+v is the command to paste information from your clipboard and works in a great many programs, whether you intend to paste text, a picture, or even audio data, assuming the program you're using is designed to edit such information.) If you'd like, you can edit the dimensions of the picture you took to crop out irrelevant information.
I'll say it again: if you have friends in common with your stalker and you want to get them out of your life, make sure you have irrefutable proof of what wrongdoings they're guilty of before removing them. If you believe they'll cause drama, you'll need that proof to defend yourself. Getting into the habit of taking screenshots of certain things, saving them, and even creating backups of them if necessary is a good practice all around; knowing how to gather and preserve evidence is a vital skill that everyone should have, including those who don't have stalkers.
One way of preserving evidence is to first take and save a screenshot, then make a copy of it and transfer the copy to an external hard drive or solid-state drive. HDDs or SSDs are the boxes inside your computer that store long-term information, like pictures, songs, and other data. You can buy more HDDs and SSDs as boxes that sit on the outside of your computer, and are usually connected via a USB cable. If you've ever plugged anything into a computer with a USB cable, you know how to connect and use an external HDD or SSD, and yes, external ones can be used at the same time as internal ones. Think of them as bigger flash drives with much higher capacities.
The only problem is that they're out of some people's price range, if you don't have anywhere from $50 to several hundred dollars to spend on one, and if yours fails, repairs could cost you anywhere from $300 to $5,000, depending on which company you bought it from, whether or not it's still within warranty, and how it failed. Some failures won't require you to spend any money at all to fix, but physical failures - the kind caused by accidentally knocking your HDD over too many times, spilling liquid on it, or other such failures - will. It's a good thing we have alternatives to this.
Much like puush,
a website called mediafire can be used to store information of your choosing. It won't take screenshots for you, but it'll do a fine job of saving them, if you choose to upload your screenshots to it. Boasting an impressive 50 GB worth of storage for all of its users for free (note: that's probably more room than you'll ever need. I say this after using their services for eight years straight and uploading many hundreds of files to my mediafire account), to my knowledge, they never delete the files you upload, if the files on my account are anything to judge by. If you want to make sure you have backups of important information, then make a mediafire account and upload that information to your account. (And don't forget to write down your login details in your usernames-and-passwords text file!)
One more method you may want to use to create lasting proof of something is a webpage archiver. I recommend using
this website, archive.is, to create a sort of snapshot of a webpage in its current form. The thing is, instead of only being a picture, it creates a virtual copy of that page, meaning that all its links and other content are fully interactive. After submitting a link to archive on the main page, there'll be a loading screen, and once it's finished, you'll receive a link to that archived page. If it's important enough to you that you feel the need to archive that page, you should save that link somewhere where you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you'll never forget it or lose it!
This site is another option, but they've been proven to delete their own archived pages at the request of people with bad intentions, making the site unsuitable for most people.
There are many other ways to save and preserve information, but all of the methods and tools I've mentioned here will suit your needs just fine. These are only a means to an end - a way for you to give yourself peace of mind before cutting all ties with your stalker or someone else you need to remove from your life, which can be difficult for many people to do. By now you understand that the foundation of preventing yourself from having stalkers in the first place is to remain as anonymous as you can online whenever possible, and you may have learned some things about software you didn't use until now, and how very much it can help you. Next, let's go over some things you probably already use, and how you can use them to cut contact with people who are too obsessive toward you.
Facebook is a site we're all familiar with. If you're a facebook user, blocking and removing someone is as straightforward there as it is on most other sites. All you have to do is navigate to your stalker's profile, hover your mouse over the Friends button near the top if you're friends with them, and click Unfriend in the dropdown menu that will appear. To the right of this button, you'll see a "..." button. After clicking it, a dropdown menu will appear. Under this menu, you can click the Report button to report them if you wish, and the Block button to block them. Another thing you'll want to do is go to your profile, and in the Friends section,
click the Manage icon on the right, followed by Edit Privacy. Ensure that nobody can see your friends list but you and your friends, or only you.
While you're at it, if you have a facebook profile and are currently logged in to it, you should
click this link, which will take you to your privacy settings. Giving stalkers the ability to see your posts, the people on your friends list, and other sensitive information could give them the chances they need to continue being a thorn in your side. Once you're done with those settings, look at the Timeline and Tagging option on the left side of that screen, and make sure that you adjust all of those privacy settings, too. In addition, take note that if your stalker hasn't found you on facebook and you know their profile, you shouldn't view it. If you view someone's profile too many times, you'll start showing up in their "People you may know" list, which will alert them to your presence.
Are you a redditor? Consider clicking preferences in the top-right corner, then scrolling down to your messaging options and disabling the checkbox which says "notify me when people say my username." You can also go to your inbox and block individual users by clicking "block user" below a message from a user you wish to block from messaging you. And if you really feel the need to, feel free to delete your account by clicking the "delete" tab under your preferences; it's the tab that's farthest to the right.
I'm sure you're no stranger to skype, considering it has over three hundred and fifty million registered users. If you use it and want to avoid stalkers on it, start by blocking and removing them, in that order. After you right click their username, select Block This Person. In the new window that appears, check the Remove from your Contact List option, and if necessary, the Report abuse box as well. Once you're done, click the Block button. To no longer see your chat history with them, go to your Recent tab, right click their username, and click Hide conversation.
To prevent them from freely messaging you again, go to Tools (one of the tabs at the top of skype) > Options > Privacy and adjust your settings to prevent people who aren't on your contact list from IMing you or starting calls with you. To make it harder for your stalker to find you again, you should click your avatar in the top-left corner of skype, then click your display name near the top-center of the window and change it to something new - preferably a name you've never used before and have no intention of using on any websites.
With over one hundred and twenty five million users and a peak of about nine million online simultaneously, steam is worth mentioning. As with skype, it's much easier to block and remove them from your friends list in that order, rather than removing them, possibly having trouble finding them again, and being unable to block them until they make contact with you again as a result. To block them, either search for them in your friends list, click the arrow to the right of their name, and select Block All Communication, or go to their profile, click the More button near the top-right side of their profile, and choose the same option.
In both cases, you can remove them using the same steps; just replace Block All Communication with the Remove this Friend option or the Unfriend option. To make it harder for your stalker to find you again, go to your profile, and near the top-right side, click Edit Profile. Near the center, above your avatar, where it says Custom URL you'll see an input field to the left of http://steamcommunity.com/id. If you don't already have a steam ID, give yourself one. If you have one already, change it to something new. Also consider quickly changing your display name more than ten times (which will clear your alias history) and give yourself a name you've never used before. Finally, click My Privacy Settings near the top-right side and change your profile status so that nobody but your friends can view it, and only your friends can comment on it.
For those of you who use tumblr, if you're receiving hatemail or other unwanted mail from someone who is not anonymous, simply click the X icon in the last ask or fanmail they sent you. You can also use
this link to report their behavior, if the situation warrants it. If you're receiving anonymous hatemail on there, you can block the person who sent it by clicking the same X icon. You can't report them since their account name won't show up in your ignore list, but an added benefit is that they can never send you hatemail from that IP address again. You also have the option of disabling anonymous asks - or all asks - under Settings > [your blog name] on the right.
Getting tweets from an obsessive Twitter user you want nothing to do with? Under one of their tweets, click the "..." button, then select Mute.
You will no longer receive notifications or tweets that are from or about them. Next, under a different tweet (the previous one you chose will be gone), click the same "..." button as before, and click Block this time. Once you do, they'll no longer be able to follow you or message you. It will also prevent you from seeing their tweets on their profile by default, unless you click a View Tweets button near the top. More privacy options can be found by clicking your avatar in the top right corner, clicking Settings, then clicking the Security and privacy tab near the top-left side of the page.
Getting unwanted phone calls, text messages, or emails? There are so many hundreds of email clients and cell phone models nowadays that it would be impossible for me to go over all of them with you, but it's not all bad news: many phones and email clients allow you to block unwanted communications. All you have to do is research how to do it (I.E. google it or look up how it's done using another search engine) with your specific type of phone or client.
One last question you may have is, "But what if I've blocked my stalker and they continue trying to get in touch with me by adding my friends and trying to speak to me through them?" Then you need to let your friends know that that's not okay, and on top of that, increase your security settings so that your stalker can't view who your friends are - if possible, and it is on facebook and steam, among other things. Consider creating a post or updating a status of yours, informing friends that they shouldn't accept a friend request from so-and-so, because they're only sending friend requests to harass you.
If things have truly gotten bad and you can't seem to get rid of your stalker by changing a display name or adjusting your privacy settings, remember: that website doesn't control your life. You lived a long time without having an account on there and you're strong enough to do without it. And instead of leaving that website for good, you could create a new account with a new alias and a slimmer friends list, only adding back the people you trust or stay in frequent contact with. This is also a great way of determining who really matters to you, and don't forget: making a new account on a website is not the end of the world. Even on steam, where you may have sunk hundreds or even thousands of dollars into your account, it's not a big deal because
you can use steam family sharing to continue playing all the games you've paid for (or received as gifts) on an entirely new account.
Sure, stalkers and other clingy people we don't want in our lives can be a nuisance, but they're just that: a nuisance and nothing more. With all this information at your disposal, you should have all the options you need to say "goodbye" to them for good and move forward with your life, if your goal is to get rid of them. However, sometimes things aren't always that simple, and people want to remain friends with someone after rejecting them. In part four, you can see many of the options that these people have available.
Concluded in part four.
