Yesterday, while I was consuming my daily morning dose of Facebook updates, I clicked on one of the images my friend had uploaded and just as the photo viewer came up, I had a jaw-dropping experience. No, nothing was wrong with the photo, the thing that amazed me was the new photo viewer.
The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the new photo viewer was, “ Isn’t it a Google+ photo viewer lookalike?” and indeed, it was. The new Facebook photo viewer has the image on the left side and every other information like the caption, tags and comments on the right-hand side.
The Tag Photo and the Like button are located on the image itself. I have read and heard people getting one or two ads in the comments section but I have not come across any of them yet.
When you hover your mouse button over the photo you can see the next and previous button to navigate through your album. The best thing about the new update is that you don’t need to scroll down to read the comments. A user can read all the comments without loosing the sight of the photo.
Cool tip: Did you know on Chrome you could actually have a Facebook photo zoomed out right from your newsfeed? Well, check this cool Chrome extension we talked about to quickly take a peek into a Facebook photo.
The photos are also of a high resolution and larger in size thus giving an all-new experience to viewing snaps on Facebook.
Although the old classic Facebook photo viewer is not that great when compared to the new one, still if you find yourself too accustomed to the older version (or if you don’t have a wide-screen display yet which can help you see the photos and comments side-by-side) there are two tricks that would bring back the old photo viewer.
When you click on the thumbnail of any photograph to open it, just remember to press the CTRL key along with the mouse click. This will open the photograph in a new tab in the classic photo viewer.
If you forget to press the CTRL button while clicking the photograph, press the F5 button or just refresh the page to see your album in the good old photo viewer.
The new Facebook photo viewer is an amazing update if you are working on a wide screen monitor. Scrolling down to view the comments used to irk me big time and hence I find this new feature a huge improvement. Though the update looks like a rip-off of the Google+ photo viewer, I have no complaints.
What do you feel about the new photo viewer? Like it or hate it? Share with us your experience of using it in the comments.