Reddit is ending anonymous access to 'Old Reddit' and users are furious
Reddit users are furious after learning that access to Old Reddit is about to change, with many threatening to walk away from the platform entirely.
For years, old.reddit.com has been the preferred version of the site for longtime users who never warmed to Reddit’s newer look, particularly those who find the modern interface slower, more cluttered, or simply less useful. It has also become a reliable go-to for people who browse quietly, avoid the official app, or rely on the older layout for moderation and community tools.
That is why the latest update has gone down so badly, as users fear it could be the beginning of the end for one of the last remaining parts of classic Reddit.
As reported by Ars Technica, Reddit will start requiring everyone to log in to use old.reddit.com ‘over the next month’.
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The change was announced by a Reddit employee using the username boat-botany, who said it was part of the platform’s wider attempt to tighten how automated systems access Reddit.
Explaining the decision on Old Reddit itself, the employee wrote: “Old Reddit’s logged-out experience is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform.”
In a follow-up comment that Ars Technica spotted, they added: “By logging in, we get a lot more signal that allows us to detect whether an account is breaking the rules, and then we can block that traffic or enforce those accounts.”
In other words, people who currently browse the old version of Reddit without signing in will soon have to use an account if they want to keep accessing it.
Reddit has not said that Old Reddit is being shut down right now, but its wording has not exactly reassured those who still use the classic layout.
Answering in a Q&A, boat-botany wrote: “We can’t promise it will be around forever, but [Reddit CEO Steve Huffman] himself has said we’ll keep supporting it while folks are still using it.”
Reacting to the news in r/technology, one user wrote: “Once they remove it, I'm gone.”
Another added: “Old Reddit is literally the last thing keeping me here, and the site usable. The TikTok-ification of absolutely everything is a plague.”
Others were annoyed by the loss of signed-out browsing specifically, with one commenter writing: “Still blocking it for sign out users is really bad.”
Another user said: “I use old Reddit. I won't use their lame app.”
There was some disagreement over whether people were reading too much into the announcement, with one commenter arguing: “So that part is a nothingburger.”
However, many social media users are still taking the update as a warning sign, especially after years of frustration over Reddit’s newer design and mobile app.
As one person put it: “When old.reddit.com goes away I will never visit this site ever again. The current Reddit is a festering pile of UI s**t.”