We just released a significant update to the Disqus comment system that is now live on everyone’s website. Most of the major changes are behind the scenes, but there are two areas that you will notice immediately.

Performance

The comment system was rewritten to render quicker and more reliably across all browsers. We did some heavy testing here in the Disqus labs and here are our results:

• Internet Explorer is up to 5x faster
• FireFox is up to 3x faster
• Webkit (Safari and Chrome), and Opera is up to 2x faster

These results are only some of the advantages of our improvements. We’re very excited to show off new functionality that will come from this upgrade. More details soon.

Interface

We made some interface changes that will affect your sites. Check out our interface guide on the Disqus Wiki for full details.

Here is the short list:

• Voting arrows has been replaced with “Like.” You can now “Like” comments, giving the commenter a positive reputation point on Disqus and helping other readers discover great comments.
• The More Menu is a new addition that brings up numerous options, such as reblogging. Moderators will find all the admin controls there as well, including removing comments and blocking options.
• The Media Menu is where you will find the video comments toggle if you have this enabled. As we release more media functionality, they will be found here.

So what do you have to do?

How to upgrade

If you are using Disqus on a WordPress blog, go to your plugins page to update or download the new plugin. For all other platforms, this upgrade is automatic.

As with every new release, we’re paying very close attention to your feedback. Let us know what you think in the comments.

UPDATE: You should now be able to see an update box for you plugin if you’re using Wordpress. This was a fix for users not being notified of the update.  -Giannii