Don’t want Twitter’s X branding? This hack may restore your faith in the internet

The desktop site of X, formerly known as Twitter, can actually be restored to its former glory with a neat trick.

Get back the bird logo with this simple hack. (Express image)

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Elon Musk’s Twitter rebranding is an ongoing process and the platform is fast losing signs of its iconic birdy past. The first to shed the cheery blue logo was the platform’s website, and more recently, the Android app has gone through the identity change as well. While little can be done about the apps, the desktop site can actually be restored to its former glory with a neat trick.

If you use a Chromium-based browser like Chrome, Edge, or Opera, an extension called “twitter_icon_x_to_bird” will do the job. It’s already amassed over 10,000 downloads, with overwhelmingly positive reviews. The extension essentially replaces the new ‘X’ logo with the classic blue bird logo, both in the tab favicon and Twitter’s toolbar to the left.

Considering how the website is a mess right now with the X logo slapped everywhere despite words like “Twitter” and “tweet” still in use, the extension will come in handy to give it a neater, more harmonious look.

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To install the extension, head to the Chrome Web Store and paste “twitter_icon_x_to_bird” into the search field. Hit the Get button and the extension will immediately go into effect – no additional steps required.

Also read | Elon Musk’s X in trouble? Indonesia raps X.com under pornography laws

If you prefer another option, you can also install a second extension created by Cygaar, a developer who shared their work on GitHub.

I'm not a huge fan of the new X logo so I wrote a chrome extension that reverts the X back to the bird logo.

You can see in the demo that the bird is restored in both the app as well as the tab icon.

Long live the bird. pic.twitter.com/dmkNygEhNO

— cygaar (@0xCygaar) July 25, 2023

However, Cygaar warned that they might not update the extension regularly unless there is high demand, so don’t expect it to last forever. After all, there is only so much that can be done to resist Musk’s changes.

This isn’t the first time extensions of this kind have emerged. In April, Elon Musk, in his obsession with cryptocurrencies Dogecoin and Shiba Inu and a dash of juvenile humour, changed the platform’s logo to reflect the Doge meme. While the modification was temporary, several Chrome extensions aimed at bringing back the bird logo popped up on the Web Store regardless.