Look what I found:
Picuki is an online tool that allows Instagram users to easily access their public Instagram content without logging in
Picuki is not affiliated with Instagram
Since I deleted my Instagram account, I sometimes ran into the problem that I needed to access Instagram content, but wasn’t able to do so without logging in. Picuki was the solution. It does exactly what it’s supposed to. You can even search for usernames or tags and get multiple results, so you don’t have to know exactly what you’re looking for. One limitation is that you can’t view private account content because you can’t follow anyone, but that’s to be expected.
Picuki is by no means aiming for perfect privacy. Their cookie banner alone, which asks for consent to processing your info by often between 400 to 600 vendors, should make that clear. This is definitely a big problem and why I didn’t suggest it much sooner. My personal setup makes visiting it acceptable (no JS; VPN or Tor; Vanadium or Brave), but that may obviously vary.
If it were added, it would probably be under the “Frontends” category, which has the following criteria:
Recommended frontends…
- Must be open-source software.
- Must be self-hostable.
- Must provide all basic website functionality available to anonymous users.
We only consider frontends for websites which are…
- Normally accessible without JavaScript.
Picuki isn’t open source or self-hostable. It does provide all website functionality to anonymous users and works perfectly fine without JavaScript.
In conclusion, I’m not sure whether it should be added. On one hand, it doesn’t meet the criteria and simply isn’t focussed on privacy. On the other hand, I’m convinced privacy, or at least an increase of that, is what it achieves. It’s a very practical tool and if not being able to look through instagram content is what keeps someome from deleting their account, it would be good to have. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Piped also doesn’t meet all criteria (it needs JS) and is still recommended. So, maybe there’s some room to add Picuki with some warnings (for example VPN/Tor and disabled JS, which should greatly help against tracking). Is it worth it? That’s what I’m asking you.
Even if it isn’t added to the website, I also simply wanted to share this here, if someone is ever looking for an Instagram viewer:)