FB Rounder

Facebook Rounder from CustomChromer is a free Google Chrome extension that rounds off some of Facebook's sharp edges. Unfortunately, it can't do anything about pointed comments and other social stresses; the edges it blunts are in Facebook's interface. It gently rounds off the corners and edges of thumbnails, tabs, and more, altering the look of Facebook in subtle but pleasant ways.

We opened Chrome and browsed to Facebook. We then opened a new tab and accessed the Facebook Rounder download. Facebook Rounder installs like most Chrome extensions, although it has no options to set on the Chrome Extensions page, just Enable and Disable controls. When Chrome notified us that Facebook Rounder was active, we reloaded our Facebook tab. The first change we noticed was the rounded thumbnail edges. We opened the same page in ChromePlus, which is Chrome plus extras, to compare the changes in side-by-side views (hurray for wide-screen displays!). Then we spotted the rounded edges of the Search button, and other smoothed contours soon became evident. The changes Facebook Rounder makes are subtle, but the cumulative effect is quite attractive. It doesn't change the way Facebook pages behave or do anything drastic or bothersome; it just makes the Facebook experience a little more pleasant, in our view.

Facebook accounts for an astonishing one-quarter of all Internet page views in the U.S., according to recent data. That's a lot of people spending a lot of time looking at the same old layouts. We expect a lot of those people will be as happy as we were with the small but worthwhile changes Facebook Rounder makes to Facebook's look.