Like it or not, your Facebook profile is about to change

All Facebook users will soon find their profile pages have been converted to the new “Timeline” display. (Facebook)

Millions of Facebook users have resisted switching to the new ‘timeline’ format. It features a huge photo as your header and makes your entire history easily viewable.

Now, timeline-opponents are about be forced to switch to the new format, whether they like it or not.

The company hasn’t announced an official date, but it says all user profiles will be converted in the next few days.

“It would have been nice if it was more of an opt-in instead of an opt-out. It’s typical Facebook. They just throw it at you and you have to deal with it,” says Reza Malayeri, CEO of Seattle-based GeeksRiot.

The biggest change ruffling feathers is the easy access to your entire Facebook history, including your most embarrassing or inappropriate posts. While they’ve always been accessible if people tried hard enough to find them, now they can be viewed by anyone, not just your Facebook friends.

“Before, the way it was set up (was) – if you wanted to go back a few years, you would literally have to click the back button 20-30 times to go back a couple of years. Now you just scroll down, pick a year and boom,” explains Malayeri.

The conversion allows a seven day preview period before it goes live. Malayeri strongly suggests taking the time to go back and review all your posts to make sure there’s nothing that can come back to bite you.

“At the very least, you can set it to block it from the general public, but if you want to outright delete it, you are going to have to go through it one by one.”

Malayeri says one of the biggest frustrations is working with photos. Users select an image that spans the entire top part of the profile page, but have little control over the image once it’s uploaded.

“You can move it around a little bit, but you can’t crop it or make it look nice. It seems like a half baked implementation, if you will,” he says.

Going forward, make sure you set your posts to the privacy setting you find most comfortable. You can choose friends, acquaintances or public, which allows anyone to view your post. You can preview how your profile looks to the public with a single click.

Inevitably, there will be plenty of complaints, but Malayeri laughs when asked if anyone at Facebook will listen.

“Don’t expect them to really care too much. It’s their train and we’re either on it or off.”