[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why is the Instagram desktop website so unre...
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Ask HN: Why is the Instagram desktop website so unreliable?
A lot of time it just times out or return 5xx errors!
Author : ent101
Score : 20 points
Date : 2022-03-20 17:05 UTC (5 hours ago)
| Arainach wrote:
| 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.
| wpietri wrote:
| 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.
| jmrm wrote:
| 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.
| MereInterest wrote:
| 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.
| Zanfa wrote:
| 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
| drzoltar wrote:
| 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.
| anyfactor wrote:
| 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?
| drzoltar wrote:
| 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.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Instagram seems to treat all non-mobile users as second class.
| Their app doesn't even have iPad support.
| Dorcy64 wrote:
| 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.
| josephcsible wrote:
| It's intentional, to drive you to their mobile app instead, since
| tracking and advertising are much more powerful that way.
| pxska wrote:
| 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.
| a-dub wrote:
| this seems right to me. i'd guess a majority of their traffic
| is mobile, so that's where they invest the most resources.
| ent101 wrote:
| These seem to be backend issues though.
| masterchief1s1k wrote:
| 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.
| 10729287 wrote:
| It's easier for them to get you hooked on your phone than your
| laptop.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Plus, it is easier to block ads on the web than in an app.
| Urgo wrote:
| 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.
| openknot wrote:
| 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.
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(page generated 2022-03-20 23:02 UTC)