The profile module lets your users share information about themselves. You set up forms for them to fill in. Users tell about themselves by filling in your forms on the edit tab of their "My Account" page. And what each user tells will be visible to the rest of the users on your site //(authenticated or anonymous)//, to the extent you choose when you design the forms. You can enable the profile module on the Modules page (administer >> site building >> modules). When you set up the forms for user profiles //at administer >> user management >> profile//, you can define custom fields (for example, for name, age, and country). To do this, you can make use of fields of the following types:

single-line textfield
Example: You want to ask your user's name

multi-line textfield
Example: You want to ask an open-ended question: "What would you most like to do to make this a better community?"

checkbox
Example: You want to say, "Please tick this box if you've ever been to Brazil."

list selection
Example: You want to ask, "Which of these colors do you most prefer--red, blue or green?"

freeform list
Example: You want to ask your user for a list--"What languages do you speak?"

URL
Example: You want to ask, "What is the address of your personal website?"

date
Example: You want to ask, "When were you born?"

You can have as many fields as you want, using any of these types as many times as you want. And you can put each field into the order you want by specifying its "weight." Each time you add a field, you are asked to specify its "category." This allows you to divide each user's profile into more than one section. For example, you might divide the profile into two sections, one on "Community interests," the other on "Professional skills." So as you define each field, you assign it to one of these two categories. Drupal will then typically display each user's profile page with two separate sections--one for "Community interests," another for "Professional skills"--each with its own set of information, derived from the fields you have defined and your user has filled in. You can mark a field as being required ("The user must enter a value"). //And you can specify for a field that it be shown for new users to fill in when they register. If you don't choose this option, users will have to edit their account after registration to enter the information.// If both the profile module and the menu module are enabled, from the Menus page (administer >> site building >> menus) you can enable on the Navigation Menu the item User list. This will take people to a page where they can see a list of your users. A person who has permission can click on the name of any user in the list to view that user's profile. The option to show this menu item may be disabled by default, but you can enable it. (And you can rename "User list" to whatever you wish.) You can also place a link to the User list among your site's primary and secondary links, or on any other menu as well. (Click "add menu item," and when you fill in the "path" field on the dialogue page just enter "profile.") On the permissions page (administer >> user management >> access control) you can decide who is normally allowed to view the user profiles. In any case, the profiles are always accessible to your site administrators. //Note that you will find access controls for profiles under "user module," not under "profile module."// Contributed modules can also deploy the fields in user profiles to do much more with them. Such modules, for example, can help community-based sites identify and organize users through their profile fields. You can

view user profiles.
administer profile settings: administer >> user management >> profiles.
grant access to user profiles: administer >> user management >> access control >> user module.