Wikipedia announced a new default look on 18th January, 2023 on the occasion of Wikipedia’s 22nd birthday. Ever since then, Wikipedia articles are displayed using the new look when you access it through a desktop web browser. They say that the new look keeps the usability at the forefront and makes it easy to access all the sections on a page. But some people have got used to the old Wikipedia look and want to switch back to the old look. Fortunately, it is very easy to change the Wikipedia appearance using its very own preferences.
Here is how to change the Wikipedia appearance and make it look like exactly like it looked before January 2023:
- Open Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org) in your desktop web browser and login to your Wikipedia account. If you do not have an account, you can create a free account easily.
- When you are logged in, click on the user icon in the top-right corner and select Preferences from the menu.
- In the Preferences window, select the Appearance section.
- Select the Vector Legacy (2010) skin and then click on the Save button. As soon as you save the preferences, the Wikipedia look will change back to the old style.
Apart from changing the appearance to the last default skin, we can also choose some other skins such as MonoBook, Timeless, MinervaNeue and Vector 2022. Moreover, Wikipedia settings allow any user to add their own custom CSS and JavaScript for changing the behavior and appearance of the Wikipedia pages.
If you want to change the custom CSS and modify the appearance yourself, then you can find all the relevant information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Customisation. You can download the CSS file for all the different skins to have a look at how different sections are created for which parts of the webpage. There are also some browser add-ons that can change the appearance of the Wikipedia in a desktop web browser.