Prefer old Reddit to the new Reddit design? No problem – you can still access old Reddit, you just have to know the right way to do it…
When a site as big as Reddit issues a system-wide design update, it’s always going to cause problems.
Users get used to something, learn to love it, and then when it’s changed, they lose their minds (which is par for the course in most reddit politics subreddits)
When Reddit updated the design of its site, replacing the old Reddit design with a more modern-looking UX, people were not happy. They hated the new design and wanted Old Reddit back.
Hate New Reddit? Want Old Reddit Back? No Problem…
There is a really simple way of getting old Reddit back – just click this link (it’ll take you to a site called old.reddit.com – essentially, it’s the old version of Reddit before the UX change. Once you’ve opened the link, you’ll be confronted by old Reddit in all its glory.
Once you’re inside Old Reddit, it works just like before. You have a list of all your subreddits up top, on the left. Your profile details in the top right, and all the most recent posts from Reddit in the central portion of the screen. Using old Reddit removes all the new UX features of the latest Reddit design, a design that many hardcore users aren’t too happy about.
Why Don’t People Like The New Reddit?
Is peoples’ disdain for the new-look Reddit simply down to them not liking change, or is there more to it? Obviously, the best place to find the answer to this question is Reddit itself. Here’s a collection of just a few of the comments made by Reddit members post design switch.
- The new Reddit design just looks like a mobile app that’s been ported to desktop, there’s way too much empty space on the sides of a post, and never mind the fact that it completely strips a subreddit’s ability to be unique with CSS
- The removal of custom CSS on subs. I can understand why they did it – there’s the possibility that mods will remove the ad frames – but the way it’s handled is terrible. Not being able to have a banner and side bar just makes everything look generic.
- New reddit isn’t very desktop friendly. They literally made navigation more difficult. Reminds me of old iTunes vs the current builds.
- Old Reddit is nice and compact, and on bigger monitors, that means more efficient use of space. I don’t want 40 percent of my monitor being eaten up by a sidebar and another 30% on each post.
- The new reddit loads the framework for the page first and then tries to load the content, but sometimes it gets hung up and it takes longer to load than the old reddit does.
- It’s chunky, it rearranges stuff that was fine before, it’s aesthetically unpleasing and offers less customization, and worst of all it’s totally needless. It doesn’t make any meaningful improvements; it’s just meant to give a facade of user-friendly design because that’s what’s marketable in trying to turn this site into more of a literal social media thing.
- Because there’s no good reason for the site to look at act like a mobile app on a PC. Its f**king ugly. The actual mobile site is so forceful about getting you to use the app that they clearly don’t want the site used on mobile anyway.
I Actually Don’t Mind New Reddit…
Controversial point, I know. But I don’t mind the new Reddit. I tend to use Reddit mostly on my phone, though, so that probably has something to do with it. Similarly, Reddit has now fixed a lot of the initial issues/bugs that affected the redesign, tweaking elements and improving overall performance.
Still, if you still positively HATE the new Reddit, at least you can switch on over to the old Reddit with just a simple click.
Richard Goodwin
Richard Goodwin has been working as a tech journalist for over 10 years. He is the editor and owner of KnowYourMobile.
