Having been released a few years back, Instagram has grown in popularity and has enjoyed over 500 million downloads on the Google Play Store itself. The basic idea of Instagram is a social media platform to share pictures on your account which can then be viewed by all your followers and can also be liked by them. Since its inception, Instagram has been constantly adding new features to its app, with the biggest one being the change of its logo, which drew praise from some users while others gave it flak. Instagram then introduced a new feature earlier this month called “Stories”. Similar to Snapchat Stories, Instagram Stories are photos or videos which will automatically be deleted 24 hours after posting.
While the new feature is pretty similar to Snapchat Stories, initial reviews and feedback from users have shown that users prefer Instagram Stories over Snapchat Stories. This new feature is only available on the Instagram app, which means Stories can’t be viewed on the web version of Instagram. Instagram may make the feature available on its web version at a later date but in the meantime, there is a Chrome extension that will allow you to view Stories on the web version. The Chrome extension was created by Alec Garcia and according to the description, “injects your friend’s Instagram Stories above your feed on the Instagram.com desktop website just like it appears in the Instagram mobile app”. To sum it up, the Chrome extension offers all the features the app has to offer.
To use the extension, simply download it and enable it in Chrome’s settings. To view Stories, simply click the icon of the Instagram user to view their story. For navigation, just use the arrow keys to either go to the next story or to go back to a previous story. To close a story, press the Esc key and you can also download Stories by right clicking the icon of the Instagram user. While the Chrome extension is currently available for download, there is no telling whether the extension will be taken down anytime soon. There is a chance this might happen as Instagram hasn’t been pleased with third party services which made use of its API in the past.
Download: Instagram IG Story