Reddit Redesign: What’s Changed (And How To Unchange It)

You may have heard that Reddit, the front page of the Internet, is updating their website with a sweeping redesign that aligns the desktop experience with what users have been getting on mobile devices for some time. The changes have started to roll out for desktop users and … not everyone is happy with them. Some people already want to revert Reddit to its old style.

Here’s what you need to know about the Reddit redesign – and the simple way to keep the classic Reddit style.

Kotaku contributor and Reddit aficionado, Adam Wells, was (un)lucky enough to click a banner ad allowing him to test the site’s redesign early this morning. Like many users, he discovered that once he had clicked that banner at the top of the page, he was in, ready to experience a whole new world.

A new fantastic point of view.

The redesign will allow users to browse pages in three distinct ways and with an infinite scroll. Those who’ve been using Reddit Enhancement Suite will no doubt rejoice at that news. The compose post box has also undergone some changes, with different ways to create new posts based on the type of content. Finally, the redesign is touting new tools to customise communities.

Here’s what users see when they first opt in to the redesign:

How does that look in action? Well, here’s what the homepage looks like:

Here’s what the compose post box looks like:

Here’s one of the new features – when you click on a thread on the homepage in the redesign, that thread will open up as a floating box in front of the page:

When the redesign begun to roll out to users, it practically broke the site, with many experiencing 503 errors and slow load times. If you’ve recently opted in and are experiencing any issues, Reddit moderator sodypop has some suggestions:

But what if you opted-in and want to get out? What if you don’t like the redesign? The new profiles or the floating threads or … well, any of it! How do you get out?

It appears the answer is to click the drop down menu next to your username when you are using the redesigned site.

At the bottom, you will see the option “leave Alpha” and once you clicked this, you’ll be back to classic Reddit.

Along with changes to the front page, user profiles have also undergone a facelift. If you’re not into the new design, you can also edit whether or not you see the new profiles by going to Preferences –> beta options –> View user profiles on desktop using legacy mode.