On Thursday 2/10/2011, Facebook announced on their (LINK) blog page (http://blog NULL.facebook NULL.com/blog NULL.php?post=432670242130) in post called (LINK) More Beautiful Photos (http://blog NULL.facebook NULL.com/blog NULL.php?post=432670242130), that they are rolling out the new picture viewer to all Facebook users.
UPDATE on Thursday, February 10, 2011: We are rolling out the new Photo Viewer to everyone over the course of the next few weeks. Now, you can browse more photos faster without having to lose your place in Facebook. Visit the Help Center (http://www NULL.facebook NULL.com/help/?page=831) to learn more about using the Photo Viewer. Check out our Engineering blog (http://www NULL.facebook NULL.com/notes/facebook-engineering/developing-facebooks-new-photo-viewer/499447633919) for more technical details about how we designed and engineered the new feature.
The new viewer is supposed to give users the following
We’re increasing the size of the photos stored from 720 pixels to 2048 pixels on the largest edge, for an 8 times increase overall
The new viewer makes it simpler and faster to navigate photos
-
Easier Tagging and Uploading
With our new uploader, you will be able to tag multiple photos in the same album all at once, as well as tag photos of the same person with a lot less effort
Some Comments made about this new picture viewer (these were posted on the same Facebook announcement by various Facebook users)
- THIS BIG BLACK SCREEN IS MAKING MY PICTURES SMALLER NOT LARGER
- I have a back button on my browser. I think I can handle browsing photos. I’d rather hit back 40 times than use this stupid new photo viewer, what a nightmare
- No, I do not like this new way. I can’t see the photos. C can’t see what I have put on and sure can’t see what other friends have on their site. i guess older people or those of us wit eye problems don’t matter. Why would anyone ever do this so lots can’t see I don’t know!!!!!!
- The new photo viewer is awful. It’s skips pictures when you are clicking on the arrow buttons and when you click on the actual picture. I hate pop ups, and I feel like the new photo viewer is one big pop up. The photos are actually smaller than they used to be. It’s really hard to tag ppl b/c it stays on the tagging function until you click “done tagging” even if you’ve moved on to the next picture. It’s harder to edit the picture info… i.e. caption, rotate, etc. Why mess with a good thing? The old way was SOOO much better. Please change!
So what does the Facebook Picture Viewer look like now / What issues are there
When accessing pictures in the new Facebook viewer they will look like this now.

However as well intentioned as this Facebook change was (as the reasons listed above – given by Facebook sound good), the implementation leaves A LOT to be desired. Here are some of the things that I have directly noticed.
- Pic viewer only shows black screen, no pic sometimes
- Pictures show smaller now than they did
- Browser has locked up more than once while trying to use the new pic viewer (Both IE8 and Firefox)
Workaround to the old version back (It’s simple)