All I can say is that there were multiple good ones but Instagram crippled them, devs have repeatedly expressed their frustration and gave up practically. So no there is no frontend for Instagram that’s works anymore. Thanks meta!
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2025
58 points (91.4% liked)
Open Source
32010 readers
98 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
- !libre_culture@lemmy.ml
- !libre_software@lemmy.ml
- !libre_hardware@lemmy.ml
- !linux@lemmy.ml
- !technology@lemmy.ml
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
What works best for me is the web version on desktop with an ad blocker. Runs relatively smoothly, no annoying ads.
The web version works without an account? That'd be news to me.
It works as long as you’re on an IP address that Meta approves. If you’re using a VPN (or even PiHole iirc) it doesn’t work.
So I have to use their malware on my phone when someone sends me a DM on there.
Yea tbf they released the web version as they crippled the third party stuff, so it’s a compromise I guess. And they could’ve also stayed app only and we would’ve been fucked completely
I saved and older post where this was mentioned: https://imginn.com/ Seems like it's still working and comments are available
I use this for sharing local news and community action from local orgs that only use twitter / ig to other platforms like Bluesky and mastodon. It's super helpful to have the comments accessible as well.
I prefer to use alternatives instead of front ends for Instacrap, eg. Pixelfed (OpenSource, federated and decentralized)
Well that doesn't solve their problem at all
that's ok if you want to publish content. but frontends are for a different purpose: you were never able to use them for that, they are for viewing instagram content
I know what is a front-end, but not really needed if you want to use it only to see the content to stay private. Posting on any Zuckebot crap no front-end will protect you. Use a VPN and a good ad/tracking blocker, eg. uBO, so you don't need a third party app to visit pages of Big Brother companies, which also can log your data and add more fingerprint data as before.
Use a VPN and a good ad/tracking blocker
Have you tried going to Instagram with a VPN on? You can't see shit unless you log in, and I don't want to make an account.
I'd rather lick my elbow before creating an account on this shit, but sometimes you come across links to certain posts on this site that require you to view them.
And that's precisely why OP is asking for frontends. So they can view the posts. They aren't looking to make posts.
in my opinion its only better with an alternative frontend, if it works well enough. because it cannot add any more datapoints than instagram could, but a good lightweight frontend will add much less, because I won't need to worry about my mouse movements and page scrolling pace being recorded. uBO and such wont be able to protect against that
what I use when people send me Instagram links: https://anonyig.com/en/?
Likely not open source, but piokok.com is another good front end
I am more interested a self hosted Instagram solutions. I wish immich supports comments and emoji.
As a dev, I think of the potentially years of work wasted on clients for corporate services who could pull the rug out from under you at any moment. Poof, years of labor in the trash.
I'll never understand people writing apps / clients for them.
did you try pixelfed? It's basically a selfhostable, federated instagram
Of course I took a look. I like pixelfed's comment feature, but it lacks other features from immich and photo prism. Pixelfed is also written from php. I don't know how many new developers will learn php and contribute to pixelfed. Thanks for the recommendation though.
I did not find any.
I am using beeper (partially open source) for the direct messages and I am using myinsta (apk mod) to remove the reels, explorer and ads from the default client
Enshitification made third-party apps disappeared. Prefer true open source project instead like Pixelfed for example.
Open source? Probably not, but the new instander beta (only available on telegram) is really promising and works well.
I'm not an IT person but I use instagram lite and Facebook lite (which has built in messenger) on android to save data and make it less addictive. I just download the apk. Is there a better way?
Isn't Facebook lite dead?
There isn't a functional open source frontend that I'm aware of, the best you can get is modded like MyInsta or Instaflow (or Revanced if you want open source mods)
I thought the revanced projects were dead/took back by a shady group ?
no they're chill, but Instagram only has one patch to block story ads so it's not much good
So what is the preferred way to acess those now ?
On Telegram, MyInsta is "instasmash", Instaflow is "instaflowupdates"
Thank you very much