Ugh, Reddit.
This site has gone from bad to worse ever since the year before it made its API terrible for all and ever since it went from old to new to www / sh . And for every iteration, it has always worsened.
I’m someone who’s adapted to the new reddit. Or at least, I tolerate it and is what I can only bear to use ever since they kicked out the decent Reddit apps. Even if I wanted to expel Reddit forever as I tried several months ago, unfortunately, core communities like r/hololive really require you to keep visiting the site.
(You should really just skip my yapping and go to the next section. I’m just like an old man yelling at a cloud here)
So what exactly are these layouts? old is basically the original / classic layout that Reddit has used since it was its own community, and when the Digg community went to it, and then it grew and grew popular until enshittification started rearing its ugly head. Plenty of the classic die-hards will remain in old, and honestly, I can see where they’re coming from: it’s clean, simple, and free of the modern web’s bloat and sluggishness for trying to be “rich” and “smart”. It’s also what Reddit Enhancement Suite works best on.
new is kind of an in-between and while it is an enshittified variant of the site that is hailed its first redesign around the 2010s / early 2020s, there’s some good bits here and there while also plenty of bad ones too. It basically followed the footsteps of sites that were adopting the modern look at the time, with paddings here and there and “comfortable” layouts similar to how Gmail had them, and so on. But since Reddit also had its own ideas to nudge users to things they want them to engage in, this redesign also introduced various annoyances over the years, from distracting buttons to inline advertising and such.
Finally, there’s today’s version of Reddit, the www or sh reddit. This Reddit came around 2023 / 2024 and has amped up what it did from new to greater heights. Heights that are unfortunately absolutely terrible — there’s now an absurd amount of whitespace, it’s now trying to be Facebook or has adopted the YouTube approach of excessively large preview images rather than “comfortable” or “dense” lists for posts, and even more aggressive attempts to nudge users to features they don’t really care about. Oh and sh is designed to be nasty on the mobile web, because they want you to use their official Reddit app that’s presumably garbage, just like these new redesigns for the sake of farming their userbase’s engagement analytics.
It’s also quite notable that shreddit also became a large thing ever since they completely distanced themselves from imgur AND when they started locking down on the API access that was mostly used by third-party client users, like Sync for Reddit.
Anyway, so where does this lead me?
Personally, I prefer new. I want it with the good bits that they added, but without the nasty bits. Just like how new became normal before sh did, I’ll use new while it lasts and when sh does, then I’ll aggressively counter their changes too.
Why not old? To be honest, old is a bit too ancient. I enjoy simplicity in the same way that I enjoy browsing news.ycombinator.com but there’s far too much rich content that I’m going to miss out with the old layout. And ever since I trimmed out my extensions and use Firefox for Android, augmenting it with RES isn’t going to cut it either (and to add, RES has been in maintenance mode too).
As of July 7, 2024, I’ve done the following things to make new.reddit.com usable, and you can add these too!
www.reddit.com and such towards new.reddit.com.shreddit image handling which insists on loading its terribly-designed viewer that takes away 30% of my screen and disables zoom instead of just showing the goddamn image.Add these to your My Filters section.
A lot of these may no longer be necessary, but fuck it, I’m keeping them in case they bring them back or they’re still around if they decide to revert shreddit
!! New Reddit - Cosmetic Filters
! See: <https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/wiki/solutions/#wiki_reddit>
! Mobile - Reddit app ad
www.reddit.com##.XPromoPopupRpl
www.reddit.com##xpromo-new-app-selector
www.reddit.com##.bottom-bar, .XPromoBottomBar
www.reddit.com##.useApp,.TopNav__promoButton
www.reddit.com##body:style(pointer-events:auto!important;)
! Mobile - uBO Annoyances has also this:
! <https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/6826>
reddit.com##.XPromoPopup
reddit.com##body.scroll-disabled:style(overflow: visible!important; position: static!important;)
reddit.com##.XPromoInFeed
amp.reddit.com##.AppSelectorModal__body
amp.reddit.com##.upsell_banner
! Other mobile-related filters
www.reddit.com##xpromo-app-selector
www.reddit.com##body.scroll-is-blocked:style(overflow: visible!important; position: static!important;)
www.reddit.com##+js(aeld, touchmove)
www.reddit.com##.XPromoPopupRplNew
! Hide Reddit 'Top Broadcast Now' & 'Top livestream'
reddit.com##a[href="/rpan/"]
reddit.com##a[href^="/rpan/"] > h3:has-text(/Top (livestream|broadcast)/):upward(7)
! Block downloading. Please report back if does not work or causes issues
||redd.it/*.m3u8^$xhr,domain=reddit.com
||strapi.reddit.com^$xhr,domain=reddit.com
! Hide the eye-catching Coin Sale button.
reddit.com###change-username-tooltip-id>span:has-text(/Coin Sale/)
reddit.com###change-username-tooltip-id>span:has-text(/Open Gift/)
! Hide the "N visits this week" toaster, possibly others too?
reddit.com##div[style*=--Toaster-indicatorColor]:nth-ancestor(1)
! Hide the Powerups advert from the feed
reddit.com##div[class*=scrollerItem]:has-text(/Powerup.+r\\//):nth-ancestor(2)
! Hide the Powerups roster from the sidebar
reddit.com##div>h2:has-text(/Powerups/):nth-ancestor(4)
! Remove Reddit Live from the dropdown
reddit.com###focus-PublicAccessNetwork
! Obliterate the microtransaction button
reddit.com###COIN_PURCHASE_DROPDOWN_ID
! Remove the Shop Avatars button.
reddit.com###change-username-tooltip-id>span:has-text(/Shop Avatars/)
! Hide Advertise button.
reddit.com##header a[aria-label="Advertise"]
! Hide Live Chat section
reddit.com##.YfUlQeQY0xbmCv-So3isP
! Hide the garbage icons added by Reddit to push engagement (Live Chat)
! Hide the Happening Now section, its annoying dot, and message bubble to interact with it, as if the dot isn't annoying already.
reddit.com##._1vXXD2qKLnHetdKvisFzBD
reddit.com##header a[href="/now"]
! Remove post recommendations
reddit.com##div[class*=scrollerItem]:has-text(/Similar to/):nth-ancestor(2)
reddit.com##div[class*=scrollerItem]:has-text(/Because you/):nth-ancestor(2)
reddit.com##div[class*=scrollerItem]:has-text(/Popular (in|near|on|videos)/):nth-ancestor(2)
reddit.com##div[class*=scrollerItem]:has-text(/redditors (liked|find)/):nth-ancestor(2)
reddit.com##div[class*=scrollerItem]:has-text(/Today\\'s news/):nth-ancestor(2)
! Remove post recommendations from subreddits you haven't joined
reddit.com##div[class*=scrollerItem]:has-text(/Join/i)
! Advertise with us
www.reddit.com##header .icon-campaign:upward(2)
! Reddit Live
www.reddit.com##header .icon-video_live:upward(1)
! Home Icon
! www.reddit.com##header a[href="/"]
! r/all
! www.reddit.com##header .icon-all:upward(1)
! r/popular
! www.reddit.com##header .icon-popular:upward(1)