A few days ago social network VKontakte turned 10 years old, of course, in honor of such an event, the developers could not sit still and a couple of months ago organized new design for VKontakte, which many, unfortunately, did not like.

In the month of August 2016, the design of VK was transformed and began to be shown to absolutely everyone, and not just to users who participated in testing. Those, in turn, could still click on the treasured “Return to old design", but now she's gone. So what should I do? How to return the old VK design?

For this case, I found several options that will allow you to return the design. I think that such a feature will not work for a long time and sooner or later you will have to switch to a new design.

Attention! After searching for information on the Internet, I discovered various scripts, labels, etc., which supposedly will help you switch to the old design. Indeed, this was the case before, but now these methods are already outdated and do not work 100%, so you don’t even have to try. The method I have given below is a little crude, but it allows us to some extent use the old design that we once loved.

Old VK design, how to switch to it?

So, one very good developer created a browser plugin that allows you to switch to the old design. To install this extension follow this link.

When you are on the site, click on the link "Install Stylish", after which you will be prompted to install the Stylish extension.

Enable the extension in the browser panel and go to the VKontakte website.

Click on the plugin icon and select the option there "Find other styles for this website", you will be redirected to the same site where you need to select the first link "Old VK design".

You will be redirected to a page where you need to click on the green button "Install With Stylish". Confirm the installation of the add-on for the extension.

Go to the VK website and click on the extension icon and check the box "Old VK design". Bottom tick “Turn off all styles, remove”. We update the page and voila, we have the old VK design.

This is interesting:

Conclusion

For me, the new design was to my taste, although it was not familiar, for some it was terrible. On this moment This is the only way to switch to the old design, since no scripts or shortcuts no longer work. The disadvantage of this extension is that it is not yet finalized. You will see many shortcomings, but overall VKontakte will be similar to what it was before. Good luck with your transition.

Attention!

Since 100% of users have updated the design, now of the working ways to get back the old VKontakte design, there is only one way left, this Method No. 5, so use that one.

As soon as more methods appear that will help return the old VK, I will immediately update the article. For now, be content with what you have, enjoy reading the article!

The beta test of the new VKontakte design began a long time ago, I even wrote several reviews on the new VKontakte 2016 design, highlighting all the pros and cons of the new style of the social network. But today VKontakte began to massively change the design for all users, and not just those who subscribed to the VKontakte blog on a new style.

I found out completely by accident, and it happened like this: all the beta testers, including me, had a button in the new design “ Return to the old VKontakte design“, by clicking on which you could go to the old design. In the old design there was a button that could return you to the new style and set it as the main one. This afternoon, for some reason, I don’t remember what, I decided to switch to the old design, clicked the button and I was transferred to the new design style, and the button disappeared.

That’s how I found out that VKontakte has already changed 10% of its users from its old design to a new one; at the time of writing this article there were probably more.

By the way, at the time of editing the article, the design is already enabled for all 100% of users, that is, VKontakte is completely switching to a new design, and in any case, VKontakte will not return the old design, all that remains is to use these scripts and browser extensions!

Changing the design to a new one was not to the liking of many users, as I said, changing the design is a rather important step for VKontakte management, many users cannot work in the new design, relying on the fact that they are already accustomed to the old one, and the new design looks like the failed design of his classmates and they want the old one back. I don’t know what they don’t like, but for me, the new design is more convenient and more modern.

There is even a petition on the Internet that collects signatures from those who want VKontakte to add the ability users can choose between old and new designs. You can sign the petition at the following link: Social network VKontakte. Possibility to use old design.

The petition was sent to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and already has 11,660 signatures out of 15,000 needed to send this letter, I think soon it will exceed these 15k signatures and the VKontakte administration will consider the possibility of introducing a choice of design for the social network, and you can only switch to the old VKontakte design using the method that I will describe below, the method is completely working and is not fake.

Once approved, the petition will be delivered to the Mail Group administration.

Personally, I did not sign this petition, because I like the new design that was installed on VKontakte and fully satisfies my needs, like the design of a popular social network.

Way to bring back the old design #5!

Why did I start the article with the fifth method? It's simple, all the methods listed below stopped working after today's update, so use this method, as it is currently the only way bring back the old VKontakte style!

So, in order to return the old VKontakte design using this method, we will need the following:

• Stylish extension for Google Chrome, for Opera, for Mozila Firefox

• Install the extension for your browser, all download links are above.

• We go to the site from which we will install the old VKontakte design: Old design - style

• That's it, now all you have to do is go to the VKontakte page, click on the Stylish icon in the upper right corner and activate the old VK.

As a result, you will get this VKontakte style, I wish you good luck!

How to switch to the old VKontakte design (Method No. 1)

Under this method there are 2, more effective ways, read below!

Right after the new VKontakte design appeared, a website appeared that posted a link with which you can switch to the old VKontakte design, despite the fact that VKontakte disabled this function.

In order to return, or rather use the old VKontakte design, simply follow the link that I wrote below.

<—— Переходим на старый дизайн вк по ней!

Attention!

To switch to the old design, a new link is available, after clicking on which you will not see the new design at all, even if you refresh the page with the new design open. I found this link purely by accident, I don’t know who the author is, but it’s a good idea. A notification appeared on the open page that you are going to update the page on VK, but even after doing this, the old design will remain in place, it will not go anywhere.

This is what happens after installing this extension, the old design works like a glove and does not disappear anywhere even after rebooting the laptop.

Method number 3 to return the old VKontakte design.

This method is as simple as method number 1, only in this case we will have to create a shortcut on the desktop to quickly switch to the old VKontakte. To do this we do the following:

There are currently no browser extensions that you can use to return return the old VKontakte design on your computer on an ongoing basis so as not to constantly click on the link. As soon as such an extension appears, I will immediately add it to my blog in order to give you the opportunity to enjoy the old classics.

Way to return the old VKontakte design No. 4

Today I found another way to return the old design to us, well, almost like the old one, since it still contains echoes of the new VKonakte 2016 design.

There is such a wonderful site called userstyles.org, which has a lot of different styles for VKontakte, so, I was rummaging around there today and found a redesign of the VKontakte design for the old VK. This is what he looks like.

As you can see, it reminds us of both the old design and the new one, two in one. But this version is still crude and contains many errors, but if you are so impatient to get rid of the innovation of the VKontakte developers, then feel free to enable this style, and this is how you can do it.

Attention, the script is still under development, so it will be updated and improved!

The new design of VK does not turn on, what should I do?

Now, in fact, this question is not appropriate, since the new design is connected to 100% of users of the social network VKontakte, good luck with using it!

If you didn’t sign up for the beta test of the new VKontakte 2016 design back in April and didn’t start receiving the design then, then now, when everyone is starting to use the design, you still haven’t been included in it, why? It’s simple, VKontakte’s management is introducing the new VK design gradually, a few percent a day. Since it is simply unrealistic to immediately enable the new VKontakte design for such a large number of users without any glitches in the system. After all, more than 350 million users are registered on VKontakte, and this is not a small figure. For clarity, I will show you statistics on VKontakte users.

And if you are worried that you may not be included, there is something wrong with your page that the design is not included, I will reassure you, this is all temporary. Soon your time will come to become a user of the new wall design and, in general, the entire VKontakte site. You can only wait for the inevitable, because the design change cannot be stopped, even through a VKontakte petition for a new design.

Although many on the Internet write that it is now impossible to return to the old VKontakte design, you now know that this is not so. And many rummaging users will soon find ways to bypass the new design and return to the old one without any complex manipulations.

And yes, I hope that the VKontakte administration will still consider the petition to choose designs between new and old and still introduce such a function. Because the new design is really so important to some users. But, unfortunately, not for me. 🙂

I will be glad to receive comments on this article.

A new version (new design, appearance, layout) of VKontakte appeared in April 2016. The old one existed for a very long time and is outdated. At first, during the trial period, each user could turn on the new version for himself, and if he didn’t like something, then return to the old one.

How did you turn on the new version of VK?

At first it was like this: the person who wanted to open it himself opened the news on the VK blog and at the very end of the page clicked "Join testing."

You could also enable the new version using the link “Use the new version of the site as default” in the left column of the site, at the bottom (if you open VK on a computer and not on a phone).

How did you enable the old version?

You could return the old one back there, at the very bottom of the narrow left column of the site, a pale gray link. It was called “Return to the old version of the site.” Then not everyone had it, and even later it disappeared completely. Read on:

Why did the new version turn on by itself and how to get back?

Since June 9, 2016, some VK users (approximately 10 percent) received the new version forcibly, that is, it turned on itself, and they could no longer return to the old one. You could also be one of these users. There was nothing you could do about it, you could only get used to it, because a person gets used to everything. The best option is to take the changes calmly. Some time will pass, and the old version will already seem inconvenient to you. And in any case, the developers of the VK site would not be able to support the old version for a long time.

This was the beginning of a mass transfer of all VK users to the new version. Here is the official news about it. Those who did not fall into the mentioned 10% could still switch to the new version and back to the old one for some time, but from August 17, VKontakte completely switched to a new version, it turned on itself for everyone without the possibility of returning to the old one.

Since then, due to numerous requests from users, some changes have been made (changed the font, left the ability to use dialogs similar to those in the old version, etc.). But in general, there will never be a return to the old version. Most likely it no longer exists.

How to return the old version of dialogues?

Go to “Messages” and find the gear icon at the bottom - . Click on it and select "Go to classic interface." After this you will have dialogues like in the old version. To go back to the new version, click on the gear in the same way and select "Go to the new interface."

New version on the phone too?

The new version refers to the full version of the site that people use on computers and tablets. This does not apply to the VK application for phones, which is developed and updated separately (see How to download VK to your phone). There is also a mobile version of the VK site, which also exists separately, but it gradually borrowed many elements from the new “full” version.

How to return the old version of the VK mobile application on your phone?

You can install the old version of the mobile application manually, this is described here:

The old version may not have music playing. No one guarantees that older versions of the application will work at all. The VK administration can disable them. In the future, you can disable automatic updates and the application will not update.

A better option is to get used to the new version of the application. When something new comes out, there are always people who don't like it. This was the case with the new version of the VKontakte website - many promised to leave VK forever, but they are still sitting there just fine. It's all a matter of habit.

Who doesn't like the new version of VKontakte?

Not everyone likes the new version of VKontakte. Many people demand to return the previous version, which they consider more convenient. Some argue that the new design is too similar to Facebook and even Odnoklassniki. Users even created an online petition demanding that the old version be preserved and given the “right to choose” (this did not affect anything). Online petitions are often created for various reasons and thanks to them, information is disseminated very widely. But in reality, the petition has never helped anyone. When the noise subsides, everyone forgets about her.

VKontakte laughed at its users who promised to leave if they did not return the old version. A month after their promise, they still continued to use VK ().

It is known that some people always greet any major update with hostility, since changing old habits is too painful for them. But over time they calm down.

Our instructions will help you quickly navigate the new version of VKontakte: Where in the new version of VKontakte are the settings, my answers, music, birthdays, logout, statistics...?

Please write below in the comments what you think about the new version of VKontakte! Your opinion is important.

Why is it important? When you express your opinion, it will become easier, you will release your negativity. True, 92% of people will not read this, but will immediately look for where to write - they don’t care. Congratulations if you're reading this! If you really want to contact VKontakte employees and ask them to return the old version, try contacting their support service - but we don’t think this will affect anything.

What happened to VKontakte music? Why is it paid now?

There have long been rumors that a paid music subscription will appear in the VK application. At the end of April 2017, VK decided to transfer music listeners to the Boom application, which has a paid subscription. The application belongs to the partner Mail.ru Group, which includes VKontakte itself. The music section in VK has changed - playlists and advertising have appeared. In the VK application for Android, music caching has disappeared (you can no longer save music and listen to it without the Internet). Why did all this happen? The fact is that if everyone listens to music for free, musicians will have nothing to eat and they will have to leave for another job. Therefore, this could not continue indefinitely. You can express your outrage right here in the comments. Be sure to share this page with your friends!

This is how VKontakte representatives answer questions about free music in the application.

For a long time, the design of VKontakte changed in small ways, delighting users with the addition of new functions or frustrating them with the removal of old ones. Suffice it to recall the moment when the local “currency”—votes—suddenly ceased to exist. But all these changes were minor compared to the recent update.

Since August 17, 2016, the social networking site “Vkontakte” has forcibly and irrevocably switched to a new design. Until this point, users were offered to switch between the new and old designs in test mode, and some users still have this function, but most do not have the coveted “switch to old design” link in the settings. Of course, for some, the new design is more convenient; it is more optimized for browsing through mobile devices, which makes it easier for the average person to use, but in many ways it turns out to be less practical for specialists. The greater the irritation of forced switching to it, with the lack of choice. Therefore, users are looking for ways to switch to the old design, and some are even creating their own extension modules. A much simpler way that allows anyone to return the old VKontakte design is to install a standard browser extension that allows you to change the display style of the necessary pages.

A simple and reliable way to return the old VKontakte design

This method requires the user to perform several simple operations, which boil down to downloading and setting up the appropriate extension, modifications of which exist for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and other browsers. One such extension is Stylish. We will consider the option with Google Chrome as the most common browser:

Regarding simpler methods of returning the old version of VKontakte

Unfortunately, there are no simpler methods to “return the old VKontakte design.” The “switch to old design” link, which used to be safely hidden in the new design, is now missing as a class. Writing scripts yourself, even for an experienced programmer, will take more time than installing an extension + style. Thus, any simple solution to the problem will be a variation on the theme of the method described above.

Stylish is one of many extensions that allow you to use custom scripts to change the visual design of websites. For the extension to work, Javascript must be enabled in the browser. Scripts for Stylish are written by people, so in some cases the result obtained this way will be far from ideal. However, if the style is updated in a timely manner, the moment will eventually come when its author will specify all the necessary parameters. Also, among the available styles, you can choose intermediate versions of the design, which will have the advantages of the old and the new.

It will not be possible to fully return the old VK design, but you can get as close as possible to the old style of visual design. If the script options offered by Stylish are not to your liking, the closest alternative is the Tampermonkey extension. Despite the fact (or rather, due to the fact...) that both extensions serve the same purpose, they may not work correctly in parallel. Therefore, it is better to remove or deactivate the first before installing the second one, and vice versa.

- I'm not kidding. Since the transition to such an interface is obviously inevitable for everyone, the question is: how to return the old VKontakte design has only a temporary solution. But because albeit temporarily, but disable the new VKontakte design and it’s still possible to continue working with the usual sane interface, then that’s what we’ll do.

This question is relevant, perhaps, for all VKontakte users who, over 10 years, have become accustomed to the simplicity and convenience of the old design and use its functionality to the fullest. In particular, this applies to those who created and administer communities and groups - the developers of the new VK.com have certainly made their lives difficult with their innovations.

By the way, for this category of VK users I would like to give a practical recommendation: in order not to waste precious time on independent public promotion both on VKontakte and in all other popular social networks, and to fully concentrate on quality content for your community, you should contact the service Soclike. Judging by the numerous positive reviews, this PR team knows their business and will be able to quickly provide your group with the required number quality subscribers.

Let's return to the main question. Let's make a reservation right away - we will talk about browser version social network. Android and iOS applications, alas, will not be considered in this article.

Upd. 08/17/2016. Dear Reader, in order not to waste your precious time, I would like to immediately inform you: “The uprising has been suppressed, Skynet has won.” Well, jokes aside, the inevitable happened: despite all the protest sentiments of VKontakte users, the developers, after several “waves” of transferring users to the new design, decided that enough wasted time: on 08/17/16 ALL users of the social network were transferred to the new design... Accordingly, the addresses are new .vk.com simply does not exist at the moment, and recommendations using its return do not work...

This does not mean that there are now no ways to return the old VKontakte design: especially for those who do not give up, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the ““ block located below in the text. There you will find a method that will probably be able to extinguish the flame of righteous anger in you.

Well, before this block there will be information that has more historical than practical significance: the chronology of the fight against the disease called “ New design of Vk.com". Getting acquainted with this information will not take you, dear Readers, much time, and probably someone will be interested in knowing “how it all began,” so all previously working methods remain in the article. So let's begin.

For those who have become a “guinea pig” for VKontakte designers involuntarily (i.e., they simply encountered a new interface at a certain moment), there should be a link “Return to the old version...” located at the bottom of the left column with menus and advertising. In truth, the designers clearly tried to make the tool for how to return the old version of VKontakte as inconspicuous as possible: gray letters on a gray background - this is difficult to notice.

Those who voluntarily joined the “ranks of testers” of the new interface (by clicking on the ill-fated “Join testing” button) may not find a link to return to the old version.

And how to disable the new VKontakte design in this case?

Pay attention to the browser address bar:

Attention to the address bar!

As you can see, before vk.com “ new" Those. in fact, it is another user profile page. To return the usual vk.com/page_id, and with it to return the old version of VKontakte, we simply “edit” the address: you need to erase “ new." And, of course, press Enter (or the input confirmation key on a touch device).

The result will be like this:

We removed “new.” from the address and got what we needed!

Sound familiar? Probably to the point of pain :) Yes, yes, this is the good old vk.com interface, which everyone has gotten used to over the 10 years of its existence. Well, now it’s a small matter: all that remains is to bookmark this page in the browser, so as not to edit the address every time, and call up this page after logging in to the social network.

It is not yet known when exactly the redesign of VKontakte will “cover” everyone, so there is hope that the old version of vk.com will be able to be used for a long time.

Upd. 06/09/2016. It seems that the “old believers” did not rejoice for long: the VK.com team began a forced transfer to a new design without the possibility of returning to the previous version.

Upd. No. 2 - joyful (not so joyful anymore - has lost its relevance...)

It turns out that there is still a workable method to return the old VKontakte interface even to those who seem to have been left with no options (at least for this method, VK has repeatedly thanked the “prompter”). However, we warn you right away - you will have to perform all actions at your own peril and risk, and there may be a risk. The method of returning the old vk.com design is associated with running scripts, and Netobserver does not guarantee that the body of the script does not contain code capable of stealing user login and password.

Let's consider a really working method, suitable for the Google Chrome browser and its “brothers”, like Yandex.Browser (browsers on the Chromium platform):

So, the method is as follows: find it on Google Playmarket

Install the first plugin in the list:

After installation, the activity of the plugin can be checked by the icon in the upper right corner of the browser:

In the tab that opens, click on the “Install this script” button:

Next, a warning from Tampermonkey will appear stating that only reliable scripts should be run (i.e., it once again warns - you act at your own peril and risk), and the installed script will be displayed:

That's all - the script immediately starts working. All you have to do is go to VKontakte (or refresh the page if you are already there) and make sure for yourself that the good old vk.com is back!

Moreover, the effect will persist both when moving between elements of the VKontakte menu and when logging in again.

This is more convenient than the method that was proposed in the comments to this article (however, I would like to say “Thank you” for this option for solving the question “How to return the old VKontakte design”).

There are also extensions similar to Tampermonkey for other browsers:

• For Ognelis: ;
• for Opera: ;
• at Safari - .

Well, after installing the extension for your browser, return to the step of downloading the user script - and then in order :)

Upd. 3 - for the most persistent.

Dear readers, you have 2 options: accept it and start getting used to the new design (this is difficult, but possible - I say from my own experience), or fight to the end :) The remaining way to fight is to use custom styles. There are several of them currently being developed, and all of them are still very crude. But, as they say, in the absence of fish and...

For enthusiasts who do not give up and are ready to get confused, we have prepared the following recommendations:

1. Using a custom script via Tampermonkey;
2. Using the Stylish browser plugin with style loading(most popular option) .

For those who have already learned to work with Tampermonkey (see description in Upd.2- above in the text), an alternative script is proposed (though very crude), returning some semblance of the old version. There’s probably little point in using it for now, but you can track the changes being made—I’m sure that after a while this custom style will work much better.

https://userstyles.org/styles/userjs/128986/%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B9%20%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0 %B7%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD%20%D0%92%D0%9A.user.js

The script will need to be edited. Specifically interested in the following lines (from 7 to 10):

// @include http://new.vk.com/*
// @include https://new.vk.com/*
// @include http://*.new.vk.com/*
// @include https://*.new.vk.com/*

You need to remove "new." on lines 7 and 8, ".new" on lines 9 and 10.

It should look like this:

The Stylish plugin is the most popular option for returning the old VKontakte design

In principle, the algorithm of Stylish is similar to the method of Tampermonkey, with the only difference being that Stylish, unlike the latter, works with styles, not scripts.

Attention: Do not run Tampermonkey with Stylish! Although both plugins are designed to do, in principle, the same thing, it is not a fact that using them together will lead to twice the best result (rather, the fact is that it will not :)

So, if you have already tested the first method and decide to move on to the second, first deactivate the Tampermonkey plugin.

After installing the extension, you need to make sure that it is activated. For Chrome, the picture will be as follows: an icon with the letter “S” will appear in the upper right corner of the browser:

The next step is to download the style from the developer's website: .

On the page that opens, you will need to use the big green button - it’s hard to miss:

Judging by the speed of releases, the author is trying very hard to eliminate all the currently existing shortcomings. Therefore, I recommend that you bookmark this page so that after a few days (weeks) you can download the modified style for Vkontakte, which will no longer be so crude.

In the meantime, let everything be the same for you as the lucky person who left this review:

Dear readers, if you have alternative methods for solving a return to the old VKontakte design, do not hesitate to leave them in the comments! We are also waiting for feedback from those who were helped by the recommendations presented.

Good mood to you all!

Article How to return the old VKontakte design - disable the new version was modified: May 4, 2017 by Netobserver