How to make the previous version of VKontakte. How to return the old VKontakte design: three working methods

Officially changed the familiar interface to a new one. Some active users still cannot come to terms with this fact and are looking for a way how to return the old design to your page. Of course, it will not be possible to officially switch to the former design, since VKontakte has completely abandoned the previous design. However, it is possible to return to the good old VKontakte using the Stylish browser extension. Unfortunately, only Chrome and Firefox users can use it. I can advise the rest to either download the browsers presented above or use mobile applications, since they are not affected by the new design.

How to return old VKontakte

To install the Stylish extension, follow the link and click install

Using this extension, you can install a theme that will take you back a couple of months - to the old site interface. There are many themes to choose from, and the developers are not asleep. The most popular ones are located at the top.

As you can see from the screenshot, the theme is in the process of being finalized and tested, the developer urges us not to be sad and promises to bring everything to fruition soon. However, despite this, the number of installations over the last week was about 7,000. We can only believe that the project will not be frozen. Already in the current alpha version there is almost complete compliance with the old VK interface.

Thus, returning to the outdated VKontakte interface is possible only with the help of third-party solutions. Whether you trust their development or not is up to you, my task was to show you how can I return the old VKontakte design?. Thank you for your attention!

In April 2016, the social network Vkontakte received a new design and design. In the test version of the new VKontakte design, each user himself could turn on the new version, check it, and if he was not satisfied with it, then switch back to the old version of VK. But let’s consider whether it’s possible to return to the old version of VK now.

How to enable the new version of VKontakte?

This can be done this way: open and at the very end of the page click “Join testing” (this may no longer work).

How to enable the old version of VK?

You could return the old one back there, at the very bottom of the narrow left column of the site, pale gray link. It is called “Return to the old version of the site”. Now not everyone has it, and soon it will disappear completely.

Did the new version turn on by itself?

Since June 9, some VK users (approximately 10 percent) received the new version forcibly, that is, it turned on itself, and they can no longer return to the old one. If this happened to you, then most likely you are one of these users. What to do? You can’t do anything, you can only get used to it, because a person gets used to everything. Try to take this 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 save the old version for you for a long time.

Reportedly, this is 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% will still be able to switch to the new version and back to the old one for some time, but then everyone will only have the new version.

New version of VKontakte on your phone

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:).

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 and even . Users even created an online petition demanding that the old version be preserved and given the “right to choose.” Most likely, this will 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 sit on VK (look at them).

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.

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 a hole where they can write. 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.

How to log in to the new or old version of VK?

You can easily log into any version of VKontakte (depending on which one you have now) through.

- 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 absolutely 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 still unknown when exactly the VKontakte redesign 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 stubborn.

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 4th, 2017 by Netobserver

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.

Who would have thought that the widely publicized update of the official client of the social network VKontakte would cause such a reaction from users? They are not just unhappy - they are outraged. Literally all the changes were criticized: the left panel, which was transformed into a tabbar, and the camera for stories, and even the likes, which from the usual blue suddenly became red. Even the most reserved ones note a number of shortcomings that would be nice to correct in order to return the interface to its former convenience.

  1. Disable auto-update of the VKontakte application on Google Play;
  2. Delete new version of VK;
  3. Restore the old VKontakte client.

Disabling VK auto-update on Google Play:

OptionsGoogle Play");

  1. Launch Play Store, go to " Options" by clicking on the corresponding icon (Alternatively, the icon with three horizontal stripes next to the inscription " Google Play");
  2. Select " Settings" and uncheck the box " Automatic application updates" (in some versions of the application you need to check the box " Never").

After these steps, the VKontakte application installed from Google Play will no longer be able to update automatically, and you will be able to use the familiar old version of VKontakte for Android without worrying that the client interface may change at any time due to the next program update.

Removing a new version of VKontakte:

  • Go to " Settings", further in " Applications", then select the new application that disappointed you " In contact with” and remove it from your Android device.

Restoring the old VK client for Android:

Download and install the previous version of the official client of the VK social network for Android (you can find it by following the link).

All. You have returned to your smartphone or tablet the familiar version of the VK application with an interface convenient for you, and it will not go anywhere again without your consent. There is no need to be afraid of automatic updates of the VKontakte social network client - you have blocked this opportunity.

The new version of the VKontakte application allowed us to once again verify that not all changes intended to improve and increase the usability of the application lead to these improvements. The tastes, habits and needs of users are purely individual. Fortunately, you can almost always find a way to return to the old, proven version of the program and continue communicating on a social network (in this case) under familiar conditions.

Information from 10/04/2017: As a result of changes in the VKontakte policy, audio recordings are no longer available in older versions of the client. The official response from VKontakte technical support on this matter: Hello! Music in older versions of the application is disabled at the request of copyright holders. Update to the latest version, please: vk.cc/android. VKontakte support team