Facebook on Friday launched its brand new desktop website. The new site will soon be available to everyone by default — it's rolling out now — but, if you don't see it yet, I'll show you how to check it out.
The new design, announced last year during Facebook's annual F8 conference, introduces a new dark mode with lower brightness — it's easier on your eyes at night and I think it looks cooler.
Facebook was starting to feel a bit cluttered. The new design has more space and bigger fonts in the columns on each side of the news feed. This makes it easier to find things like the pages you follow (such as stores you shop at, local restaurants, bands you like), groups you participate in (like your neighborhood or a fan club), and events (like birthdays and upcoming cocktail parties).
Facebook said it's also easier for people to create all of these things.
However, one setting appears to be gone: the ability to arrange your News Feed posts in reverse-chronological order. Facebook has been deemphasizing this capability, guiding users to rely on its algorithms for how posts are arranged, but in this revamp the option to organize by "most recent" is gone (or so deeply buried that we couldn't find it). You can prioritize which friends or pages you follow.
You may already have switched to the new design over the past few months, when Facebook began to ask some of its users to participate in the beta.
But, if you didn't, here's how to switch.
How to see the new Facebook if you don't see it by default already
- Tap the down arrow on the top-right of your screen.
- Choose "switch to new Facebook."
You may also see a pop up at the top of the screen that looks like this, which you can tap to switch to the new Facebook:
Facebook said soon you won't see those options and you'll just see the new version.
