10 Ways to Change Back to the Old Facebook

Many have questioned how to change over to the new Facebook Timeline, and in the process of doing so I have had many users who just wanted to go back to the original Facebook layout- for some the new Timline layout was just a bit of a nuisance. It seems like some just don’t quite like the look of Timeline, perhaps it’s the news ticker or some other feature such as the Facebook Chat?

Whatever it may be that is your pet-peeve for Facebook we have found some great plug-ins or “apps” that will help you disable that Facebook Timeline and get the classic original Facebook look back.

We have identified five older Facebook features and functions that we used to enjoy, and found extensions for Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers that get them back.

We know we can’t stop progress in the long term (and we wouldn’t want to), but for the sake of some short-term peace of mind, we’re going retro with some tweaks to suit our preferences.

Let us know in the comments about any Facebook features that drive you nuts, and we’ll see if we can find a few options to “fix” them.

1. Facebook Classic: Google Chrome

Hide your news ticker and restore your news feed with Facebook Classic for Google Chrome.

Classic Facebook

To compensate for the fact that it rearranges the order of your News Feed, Facebook now displays a constantly updated news “ticker” above the chat bar if you have it open, or the top right of your home page if you don’t.

This continually updating stream is a source of annoyance to many, while the edited news feed itself makes many Facebook users apoplectic with rage.

Facebook Classic will solve both these problems. In addition to nixing the ticker, it reverts your News Feed to chronological order. As a bonus, you can easily toggle it on and off.

2. Facebook Ticker Removal: Firefox

Hide your Facebook News Ticker in Mozilla Firefox.

Firefox Ticker

This add-on for Firefox gets rid of the ticker, whether you have the right-hand side chat window open or not.

3. Kill Facebook Questions: Google Chrome

Hide Facebook questions and polls

Hide Facebook Questions/Polls

Facebook introduced its “Questions” service as a way for users to get more from their social circle — and to compete with up-and-coming questions services.

If however, you don’t give a flying hoot whether your cousin goes with the kitten heels or the peep toe wedges, you can vanish such annoyances from your stream with this handy extension.

4. FB Purity: Firefox

Hide Facebook Questions.

FB Purity

5. Revert FB Photo Viewer: Google Chrome

View your Facebook Photos the classic way

Revert Photoviewer

Facebook fancied up the way photos display with a new “theater” style, which makes each image a pop-up.

What was wrong with the old scroll-through-an-album method, we don’t know. But we do know a way to revert back.

This extension will get back the “previous/next” navigation, and nix the sloooow-loading windows.

6. Facebook Photo Theater: Firefox

Facebook Classic Photo Firefox

7. Get Back Old Facebook Chat: Google Chrome

Revert to the classic FB Chat.

Old Facebook Chat

Dear Facebook, what was wrong with old chat? Was it just too easy to see which of your friends was online? Too easy to ping someone a quick “hi?”

If you preferred the old way, this extension will disable the ticker and restore your Facebook chat to the little window on the bottom right of your screen.

8. Tidy Facebook Chat: Firefox

Tidy FB Chat

This Firefox option won’t get you back the old version of Chat, but it will hide all your offline friends, showing only those available, so it at least addresses one of new Chat’s UI issues.

9. Facebook Comment Fixer: Google Chrome

Facebook Comments

How many times have you posted a half-finished comment by pressing “Enter” too soon? Yeah, us too.

Call us old-fashioned, but when we’re publicly commenting on content, we like to be sure before we hit send. Having to press Shift+Enter to create a line break is just too much hassle.

This extension restores the “Comment” button, and maps “Enter” to add a new line. You can be sure you won’t post any witticisms until they read exactly as you intended.

10. FB Purity: Firefox

FB Comments

For Firefox users, the easiest alternative is F.B. Purity. One of the many features this add-on offers is the return of the “Comment” button.