I have tried proxigram and it's not working and isn't getting updates. I would like the frontend to be able to read comments but that's not my priority.
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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
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'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?