Ask HN: Why is the Instagram desktop website so unreliable? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why is the Instagram desktop website so unreliable?

35 pointsent10122 comments

A lot of time it just times out or return 5xx errors!

All Meta properties generally don't care about (or have active disdain for) the web version. As others have said, this is to drive people to the app, where they can collect orders of magnitude more data and where it is more difficult to block ads or trackers.

The desktop version of Facebook constantly lags behind the app and has weird bugs in Firefox where it will stop loading content, and when anything works on the mobile version of the website I'm honestly surprised.

And not just Meta! I browse Reddit mostly via Firefox on my tablet. It's very unreliable. And every day it has this sad, "This page looks better in the app" banner at the bottom. I just can't imagine asking an engineer, "Hey, can you make your web app continuously talk trash about how much your work sucks?"

And it's the same deal with Twitter. All sorts of bugs on mobile Firefox, some of them which I've been tripping over daily for years. When I worked at Twitter some years back, the web version was the red-headed stepchild of the clients. The engineers on it were nice and smart, but the team was underresourced and the client was treated as secondary to the mobile apps.

Reddit actual web interface is really bad in every web browser, mobile or computer. The only difference is that in the computer it can have a lot more of resources to waste.

Boost, Relay and BaconReader are pretty good to browse Reddit in Android phones, and I know Apollo or narwhal are also good for iOS.

This is odd because the web version is almost always the first experience for a new user of the platform.

Not just that, but it actively and blatantly lies to users. For the past few years, facebook has displayed the red number overtop the "Messenger" section. The desktop website correctly shows that no, it's been quite some time since anybody sent an direct messages. The mobile website will not display the non-existent messages, and instead tells the user to install the Messenger application.

That would definitely explain why facebook.com still has had the exact same unread messages counter bug from 2014 that they used as a case-study for the React/Flux announcement video[1]. They just don't care.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYkdrAPrdcw&t=887s

I’m guessing it’s due to bots. Desktop websites are considerably easier for deploying and managing automations. You don’t need a physical smartphone, just any cheap and capable machine behind a vpn. Things like GPS spoofing are considerably easier and harder to detect. Professional bot farms can take advantage of easy screen sharing and proxying to manage Captchas and challenges, thereby distributing their operation and saving on cost while maintaining scale.

I wouldn’t be surprised if 80%+ of desktop logins are from bots and other bad actors.

As a bot developer (I prefer to say Python Developer who specializes in Automation and Data(!)), I don't think it is entirely accurate. For example - Instagram's mobile web interface literally relies on the screen aspect ratio. Instagram's unreliability isn't a security measure, this is just unreliability.

As a part time social media manager, I use an android emulator to use Instagram and Facebook. The hoops I have to jump through to post a video story smh.

On a tangent:

I hope people stop labelling bad design as preventive measures. The bad design that do act as preventive measures are almost always accidental. Like yesterday, I spent 2 hours trying to find the cookies when I logged into a site that had some data. Only to discover the entire log in measure was a dummy interface. They were sending the data anyway but had a hacky solution to check if a user have attempted logging in. They were sending the data under the hood but they showed it only when the user logged in. Now, tell me is this a security measure? They did waste my time so wouldn't this fulfill their security goals?

Curiously what kind of tasks do you use your bot on? I’m surprised you’re able to use an android emulator. My understanding is that device attestation can detect emulation, which would place the account into a higher risk tier. But maybe as long as you’re under the rate limit for things like profile hits and messages then they let it slide.

That’s why I was thinking web would be easier because you can easily change your header and forego device attestation and emulator detection.

I don't use android emulator for developing automation solutions. I use it for regular old part time social media and community management gigs. You can't upload videos stories without the app. I rarely use automation solutions for these jobs.

Just my two cents on the topic, but I'm guessing that Instagram was never really mean't to be used on desktop – it was developed mobile-first and just ported to desktop when there was a bigger demand for it.

These seem to be backend issues though.

I would think that since most of their content (photos, stories,..) are optimized for mobile screen size only.

So if their infrastructure doesn't consider much for responsiveness between multiple screen size, I doubt the backend for the web version matter much for them.

this seems right to me. i'd guess a majority of their traffic is mobile, so that's where they invest the most resources.

It’s easier for them to get you hooked on your phone than your laptop.

Plus, it is easier to block ads on the web than in an app.

For what its worth I use Instagram via the desktop (windows 10, chrome) every night to view stories for everyone I follow as I prefer the much larger screen (27" monitor vs 6.x" phone). I never have any issues other then it re-muting stories on me if I'm flipping too fast.

Instagram for Safari and Chrome works well for me. I speculate that Instagram's web development might be optimized for Chrome, but not Firefox (which other users in the comments are using and having problems with).

I've also experienced problems with Firefox (especially with speed) when using any Google Suite apps (Docs, Sheets). I used to exclusively use Firefox, but some of my work as a volunteer requires social media account management (via Instagram) and GSuite apps for collaboration.

It's intentional, to drive you to their mobile app instead, since tracking and advertising are much more powerful that way.

I have also noticed lately, whenever I try to see the comments on the laptop it overheats. I suspect there is something going on to moderate the bot comments in the front-end, which somehow removes them as they load.

I uninstalled the app and use the web version because it’s difficult to scroll endlessly on the web. Something happens in 2 minutes and the page crashes.

Instagram seems to treat all non-mobile users as second class. Their app doesn’t even have iPad support.

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