Disabling Facebook’s Theater Mode for Albums
Facebook rolled out the ‘Theater Mode’, a fullscreen lightbox-like jQuery photo viewer for displaying photos and albums a while back. This was not taken well with the community. Here are a few ways to override the theater mode and display the album in old-school Facebook style:
The Easiest Temporary Solution: Middle click
Whenever you see a link to a photo/album, middle click the link to open it in a new tab, thereby forcing Facebook to display the old-school album in a new browser tab.
Middle clicking on a link serves the same purpose as right clicking on the link and choosing “Open Link in New Tab”. For mice without a middle button and laptop trackpads, hold down CTRL and click the link.
A Permanent Solution: Using Browser Addons and Extensions
- Firefox Users – Install the “Facebook PhotoTheater Killer 1.0” addon here.
- Chrome Users – Get the “Old FB Album” chrome extension here.
- Internet Explorer – You must be kidding. Get Firefox 4 here and then get the Firefox addon here.
Other ways (Inefficient)
- When viewing a photo in theater mode, hit F5 to refresh the page.
- In the album/photo url, take out the “&theater” part and hit enter in the address bar.
