how can I prevent people from finding and adding me on facebook ?

[Mohammad]

[Dennis]

Look in the settings dude.

[abraXus]

you can try this

http://abrax.us/Facebook/NotSearchable.php

but there are other ways they can find you

why would you want to be on facebook, but not want people to find you?

[transcender]

you can't unfortunately. friends of friends can find you but not anyone. maybe if friends have their friendlist set to "only them can see it" then maybe not. you can of course "block" folk YOU find before they have chance to add you. it's not good, fb should make it so you can not be added at all if you so wish. you could add the unwanted's and put them on a list whereby they see no updates from you. also if they add you, you have the option of refusing plus ticking the box that says you don't know them and they then can't add you again.

[Kenny Deheart]

You can set your account to friends only and everything but your profile will be hidden, but your profile will still be viewable.

There is no option to block your profile itself from being searched and viewed. The only way to stop that is to delete your facebook account.

[Straburreh]

You could slightly alter your name if you wanted. Like in my last name, I dropped one of the letters from it, so that when people type my name in, it doesn't show up because technically it's not properly spelled.
You could also have your profile picture be something other that you (like a cartoon character or a baby picture). That way when someone searches your name, they wont be able to recognize you. The most obvious way people find eachother is by looking up their name and identifying a picture of them. Nothing more embarrassing than friend requesting the wrong person. There's other people in the world with the same name as you, no matter how original you think you are, they would really have to narrow down their search if they were really determined to find you.
Avoid adding specific information about yourself, like where your from, where you work, what school you attend, etc. All of this would only help the person narrow down their options and confirm who you are. There's a privacy setting you can use on Facebook as well, so that no one outside your friends list is allowed to look at your profile, information, anything. Its often used to keep your information secret from the real world, or to avoid anyone stalking you that you do not know about. With the privacy setting on, the only way someone can access your profile is if you accept them via friend request. Even then, they would not be aware if you've recently gone online or not, so if if your ever confronted in person as to why you haven't accepted a friend request, you can always say "I don't really use my Facebook anymore" (in any sense, just lie)
Hope this helps!

[Caramel]

make it so that only friends of friends can add u. thats about as private as u can go.

[Daniel]

Its Not Possible to Stop People From Searching you on Facebook However you Can Turn off Friend Requests Go to Privacy Shortcuts you Can Find That Under the Lock Button on the Upper Right Hand Corner of your Screen Under Who Can Contact Me you will Find the Friend Request Setting Change that And you Should be Good To Go Thats The Only Way you Can Stop People From Adding you on Facebook