But not anymore. What once was just a stream of your friends’ photos slowly became a collection of autoplaying videos, and advertised content, followed by an endless feed of algorithmically curated nonsense. Now Instagram is even trying to shoehorn a TikTok clone into the mix. If you like Instagram’s new features, I’m not here to take them away from you. But if you, like me, find it all a bit exhausting, I come with a solution: the web version. Your friends’ photos are all there, and you’ll soon notice Instagram’s algorithmic sorting hasn’t made it here yet, so you can scroll in reverse chronological order like in the good ol’ days. Even better—there are no ads or Suggested Posts on the web version of Instagram. Videos do not autoplay, but you can watch any of them by tapping the play button. You’ll just see photos, clips, and Stories from the people you follow and nothing else. But not everything is perfect. At times, scrolling on Instagram for the web can feel clunky, the way mobile interfaces that have been adapted for browsers often do. And, if you forgo the app completely, you won’t get any notifications. Some will see the latter as a plus, but others will understandably consider it a dealbreaker. Instagram also recently added the ability to upload photos and Stories from the web, which means you no longer need to install the app to have a fully functional account. This is where the web version comes in to save the day. Instagram for the web is optimized for your browser of choice, so iPad users will be able to scroll through the platform while enjoying large, high-resolution images. It’s just a better way to scroll. Instead, users can install the app for iOS. But that means using a tiny version of the app or zooming in. Because the aspect ratio on iPhones is different than that of iPads, the tablet automatically makes up for the width difference by adding black bars to the right and left of the screen. And because the device zooms in to fill the display, the photos look fuzzy. Considering the iPad’s large, hi-res display is there for a reason, it’s obvious that this is far from ideal. On Android, open the website on Chrome, tap the three dot icon in the top-right corner of the browser, and tap Add to Home Screen. A prompt will ask you to name the direct access—it’ll say “Instagram” by default, but you can type whatever you want. To finish, tap Add, and if you have a Pixel, tap Add to Home Screen again on the next menu. This will add a distinct Instagram icon which you can move around and tap anytime to open Instagram’s website.
