Umm Friends Only By Default for New Accounts

My issue is

1.     I want all profiles to be friends only by default so when they join their profile is friend only. (still trying to figure out how to do this)

2.     However if this occurs all blocks will be friends only – so by the power of it no one can then friend each other because the “actions” block is now “friends only.

3.     Is there a way to make the action block stay “public” (or any other for that matter) and the remaining blocks friends only?!

Any modules that do this or how do other people do it?

I am trying to keep my site “simple” and do not want people needing (and getting confused) to click yellow keys to select different things etc.

Does this make sense? I hope I explained OK

You don't need to make all blocks to be for "Friends Only", you can set whole profile privacy to be "Friends Only" then profile will private, but it will be a button to request friendship.

Okay I see that there is a blue + to friend someone if their profile is set to Friends Only. Thank you for pointing out that even if actions block is missing you can still friend on top with the "+"

With that.. it moves me 1 step forward and back to the question of where do I set whole profile privacy to be friends only as right now they are joining and are automatically "public".

If I disable "public" in the admin --> settings --> advanced settings --> Privacy Groups something seems to go awry -- i feel it may somehow related to this https://www.boonex.com/forums/topic/Setting-default-content-albums-privacy-.htm

Even if you disable public and only have "Friends" enabled-- profiles are then stuck on "public" 

Thank you!

Starting from 7.3.0.B1 you can select default privacy from Admin panel > Settings > Privacy Settings > Defaults

In older version you need to do it directly in the database, like this:

UPDATE `sys_privacy_actions` SET  `default_group` =  '5' WHERE `module_uri` = 'profile' AND `name` = 'view_block';

clear db cache after this query execution

Strange, I had my host run that query and nothing changed. 

I made sure cache was cleared too.

I signed up a new user and their profile privacy shows as "Public"

running 7.2.1  privacy groups "Public" and "Friends" activated in admin panel 

Default group 5 should be Friends... 3 should be public?

And when a new user joins with these settings just get the following when they view a new friend and when the friend views the new user: 

Here is one more query to run:

ALTER TABLE  `Profiles` CHANGE  `allow_view_to`  `allow_view_to` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL DEFAULT  '5'