[dont__panic]

Additionally, using Facebook and Instagram from your browser will constantly expose you to their obnoxious "better in the app!" banners that you can never fully dismiss. Just making another one of their dark patterns visible enough to make you (hopefully) question the intent of the company...

Also, Instagram ads are actually blockable in-browser because they haven't bothered to update the site beyond the bare minimum of compatibility updates in years. So my iPhone on a VPN running a pihole made Instagram a little more bearable until I noticed that none of my friends ever posted anything any more.

[oplav]

I started exclusively using Instagram on my phone through mobile Safari and the experience is much better. There are no ads in either stories or the timeline. I don’t have any ad blocking set up on my phone.

The “Discover” section also isn’t as snappy as the app, so I find myself rarely using it. That section is what used to be my largest time sink when I used the app.