Back in 2016, network traffic from mobile devices surpassed the desktops. These days, almost every person who owns a PC also owns a mobile device. Due to this continuously increasing number of handheld devices in the last decade, many companies launched their services only on mobile platforms and Instagram is one of them. It was initially launched for mobile devices. Although now you can access it on a desktop, the features in the desktop version (Instagram.com) are not as good as of smartphones’. It lacks some essential features and the content to screen ratio is dramatic.
If you are a Google Chrome user then there might be a possibility to get a decent user experience on Instagram.com. With the help of an extension, you can improve the content to screen ratio and see more posts at once.
Also read: Get Instagram Notifications On PC For Post Like, Comment
Improve Instagram Layout To See More Posts On Desktop:
You can improve the Instagram.com layout in Google Chrome with the help of this extension. It adds many features to improve your overall Instagram experience on a desktop.
Improved Feeds
With the help of this extension, you can view more posts on your screen. Instead of showing one post at a time, this extension can show 2 or more posts. It moves the Stories section on the top and uses that extra space to show more posts. The post layout is similar to the Instagram mobile app. This layout is not perfect though; sometimes, the caption and comments text is weirdly distant. This is probably to make all the posts’ layout same in terms of height.
Comparision
Here is a comparison between the regular Instagram.com layout and modified layout using this extension. In the modified layout, the Instagram Stories are at the top and you can see more posts in the feed.
Video Controls
Videos on Instagram don’t have any control options. This extension gives you the essential controls on Instagram videos. You can seek video backward/forward, mute/unmute the volume separately from the system volume, and make it full screen as well. There is also a video download option shown in a screenshot of this extension on the Chrome Web Store, but, I didn’t find it anywhere.
Night Mode
This extension also has a night mode for Instagram because, why not. Night mode is comfortable to stare at in low light situations, saves energy on OLED screens, and also looks cool. But, this night mode is not good; there is a huge room for improvements here. First of all, the scroll bar for Stories is still white which is annoying. Second, the text is not optimized for the night mode. The names on the Stories are hard to read; same for the tags and hashtags. The weirdly distant text and hard to read tags makes this night mode a nightmare. It is not convenient unless you are there just for memes.
Liked + Saved
On Instagram, you can access the posts you saved but not the posts you liked. With this extension, you can do that too. Just, click the three-dot icon present at the top right corner on the screen and you can access all your liked posts along with saved posts in separate tabs. From here, you can also access the Options (Settings) of this extension.
Advanced Options
This extension has some really useful options. Some of them are for customizing the feeds and other visual options whereas some add additional features. In the “Options”, you can set the number of posts per row, adjust post width, schedule night mode and enable picture only mode.
With this extension, you can hide Stories of a particular account or hide Stories altogether. It also has a “Watch” feature that notifies you whenever a particular account uploads a post and/or Story. You can add accounts in your watchlist by their usernames. You can also add accounts by clicking the Watch button (courtesy of this extension) on their profile page.
Grab this extension from Chrome Web Store here.
Visit the project’s Github page here.
Wrap Up:
With all these features. this extension surely improves the overall Instagram user experience on the desktop. Some of these features are not perfect but they are there if you want them.
