YouTube goes 'dark'
While it was already leaked out in A/B testing recently, now, Google has made it official regarding the new look of YouTube. As per the company's official blog, the desktop version of the site got a “Material Design” revamp. YouTube notes that the latest design aims for a "simple, consistent, and beautiful" look and feel. The new update comes as the website is turning 12 on Monday.
The new revamp also includes other added features, including a new dark mode, alterations to search and channel pages, and an updated theater mode for watching videos in a larger player without switching to full-screen. There’s not a drastic revamp of the website, but the box card design has been removed and changed to a simple white background. One will notice more white space, but when you switch to "dark mode," the white background will turn to black, which its basically introduced to offer a better viewing experience in dark surroundings, which means it will be easier for you to browse YouTube at night.
Further, there are three main sections at the top, including Home, Trending, and Subscriptions, followed by Your Library (your saves, purchases, playlists and more), and a list of your individual subscriptions. The company has also informed that YouTube's new makeover is built on Google's Polymer framework, a JavaScript library for creating Web components, with an emphasis on creating Material Design-style apps online. With the Polymer implementation, YouTube says it will have "quicker feature development from here on out." Further, the YouTube logo, home button, and the other sections have been streamlined and the bottom section which had language options has been removed. With one scroll down, the page is now an endless list of recommended videos.
How to get it
To have a look at the new design, users can visit the website, with the ability to easily go back to the original version if you don’t like it. You can also enable "dark mode" by clicking your avatar in the left corner and selecting it from the new set of screen options. If you don't like it, you can select "restore classic YouTube" under your account settings.