Over the last month I’ve seen far too many complaints from users of Facebook - currently the world’s largest social networking site. The complaints have been sparked by Facebook’s development team launching a new design which, apparently, is a usability nightmare.

Personally I don’t see any issues - in fact once you get used to it I find it much more appealing and a lot faster to load, especially when viewing profiles. But one thing which concerned me a little was the discovery of a group on Facebook telling users how they can get the “old Facebook” back.

It relies on the user downloading Firefox 3 if they don’t already have it (you should do this anyway if you don’t use it - it’s a fantastic browser!) Once downloaded, they must embark on a full-scale challenge installing programs and changing settings on their computer. The instructions provided mentioned emulating Internet Explorer 5.5, which can only spell trouble. Microsoft’s IE5.5 was released back in 2000 and there is clearly something in this browser stopping the new design from working.

While following the instructions is all well and good, it means the potential for many of today’s websites to stop working is very high due to technologies developed since IE5.5 was released.

My advice? Take some time and get used to the new Facebook design. The Internet is an ever-changing world and nothing can stay the same forever.