Twitter’s choice to change the favorite star to a liking heart stirred up controversy and sparked the creation of Google extensions.
Did Twitter know the chaos it would throw the blogging world into when it publicized the seemingly insignificant change from favorites to likes? The site has been making other alterations to its original format recently, but none has caused as much consternation as this one.
If you were one of the many Twitter users personally offended by Tuesday’s news that the site was making the switch from its favoriting “star” to that of a liking “heart,” you can rejoice over solutions provided to you via the Google Chrome web store. A myriad of extensions that are dedicated to restoring the stars to their rightful places among the tweets on your newsfeed have popped up since Twitter’s announcement.
One such extension is called Twitter old favourite, its birth a result of the traumatizing news yesterday. The description of the extension offers sympathy to social media users who felt betrayed by the move. “Don’t like the new heart button? Feel no love?,” the site asks. “This extension reverts and replaces the new twitter heart favourite icon to that old yellow star that everyone is missing.”
Another extension, StarBack, is frank when it speaks of its reliability. The description warns that it might soon cease working, and states, “This extension was thrown together in minutes to replace the heart icon on Twitter with the old star.”
A third option, out of many, is Favorites for Twitter, the webpage of which accepts the thanks for its services that it expects users will offer it in advance. “Twitter recently switched from using stars to hearts as the ‘like’ button. Not everyone liked that, so this brings back the old star icon. You’re welcome,” the site reads.
So if the heart symbol is more than you can handle on your social media network of choice right now, you should probably consult a therapist, but you can also thank your lucky stars, or Google, for continuing to solve all your problems.
