Word has it that face scanning will soon be necessary to do anything at all on FB and IG (including deleting your account) so I’m in the process of taking care of that business now and trying to encourage the few friends I’m still in touch with to do the same.
Unfortunately, without an account you can’t access content, and there are still numerous local businesses and organizations posting at FB and IG and I can’t really expect that to change anytime soon. But it would definitely help sell the idea of giving them up if I can offer another way of seeing posts on those sites.
With IG, there is https://imginn.com/ which I’ve been using for a time, it seems to work well enough to show an account’s IG posts.
What I really need is something like that for FB. I don’t really need to see posts from individual accounts as I don’t even think my friends post on FB anymore; I really just want to be able to see “Liked Pages” as those are often regional businesses and communities. Being able to see groups would also be helpful but those often require special permission even when you do have an FB account so I don’t expect much there.
Thanx
https://www.pixnoy.com/ is a good way to browse public Instagram accounts.
I was using imginn, but this is a nice one, thanks!
just delete your photos & posts and leave it idle…?
Did you read the post?
If a business only has some shitty Instagram or Facebook page or wants to only be contactable via WhatsApp then they don’t deserve my fucking business.
You obviously don’t live in a rural area where almost all businesses do exactly this, minus the WhatsApp part. If I had that attitude, I’d only have Walmart and nobody should live like that.
Real question, can you describe this experience more? How do businesses get locked behind Facebook?
It takes money and know-how to create and maintain a real website, but Facebook is free and requires little knowledge of how websites work. Add the fact that many rural folks still don’t take the Internet seriously, and you get businesses that don’t realize that they’re neglecting a useful tool to help them gain and maintain customers.
What I said before was a little exaggerated. An example of the experience: this weekend I was looking to order lunch in an area that I don’t frequent. There was a sandwich shop that I had been meaning to try because people rave about it. I tried to call to place an order and the phone just rang. No voicemail, just ringing. I went looking for a website, thinking maybe they’re closed on Sundays (I hear the owner is religious) and I find nothing but Facebook. The latest post was from November saying something about the owner having broken his arm, so they’ll be closed until further notice. So I guess they’re closed?
I move onto another shop who does have a website, but it’s bare bones: just the name, address, phone number, and hours that are probably outdated. No menu. Their Facebook wasn’t any help. I had to Google to find pictures of the menu. I called them and ordered. If I wasn’t willing to take an extra couple of steps, I’d have to resort to Subway for a sandwich… no thanks.
The usual experience is like what happened with the second shop, sometimes with a menu, sometimes it’s up to date. No online ordering, no Doordash. Maybe they have a new customer form to fill out to get a call back for a quote, but don’t be surprised if they don’t call, because they don’t check those messages because they don’t take the Internet seriously. They’re great at their job, but suck at current forms of communication. If you want to support local businesses in a rural area, you call them or just show up. It’s like the 2000s out here.
you call them or just show up. It’s like the 2000s out here.
TIL: I’m living in the 2000s and didn’t realize it. 😅
Yeah, this is what I do. Sometimes I show up and the place is closed. I wasted 30 minutes driving there. It’s annoying. But, not so annoying that I want to use FB. (For me personally. I understand people have different tolerances.)
I’m older, I guess, this is just what we did when we were growing up.
I use either MeTube or https://mollygram.com/ to view IG reels my wife and friends send me. Doesn’t have full browsing though, and might not help with seeing business hours. I tend to just not do business with any place that requires an account to see their info.
I heard about https://codeberg.org/irelephant/kittygram but never used it
I just made a dummy account. No posts no follows. I only use for occasional links people send me.
I did the same thing but if you read the post that’s not what I’m asking for.
I understand what you were asking for. People ask for what they imagine. What they can imagine isn’t always what they want. Sometimes an entirely different idea can work better than they imagined.
By what you wrote, you want to be able to access Facebook and Instagram anonymously. The essayist most reliable way to do that is with a disposable account. Work around sites aren’t all that reliable. They work for a time then get swatted down, or limited in some way.
I need Facebook for my volunteering gig, sadly. I disabled my own profile over 2 years ago now and made a fake profile which only follows the information I need on there and nothing else. I only use it in one specific browser with an extremely good Facebook specific ad blocker.
I mean because of friends and family where that is my only contact information I doubt I will ever drop facebook. I just don’t interact with it much. its like when im not looking for work I barely interact with linkedin.
A bit of pain but you can still see FB, you have to hit the [x] in the top right of the login nag then it will let you scroll through several photos/posts before popping up again (wont work on the main feed page just photos/posts, not sure about liked pages). When it does pop up again it wont have the [x] so click the browsers refresh and the [x] will show up again but FB will still be on the same photo/post. Rinse, repeat.
Is it not easier to ask the regional businesses if they have website/rss/newsletters? And point out meta are gonna be forcing you to compromise your privacy. Places will soon look at when their userbases shrink.
My family still sends me Instagram links. I am not clicking that shit and I told them but they still ignore that little fact. Who cares, it is slop anyways. Anything substantial they will tell me anyways.
I’m not aware of a workaround for Facebook. I also use a second pseudonymous account for accessing information shared in groups and on business pages.
I’m glad I deleted my accounts years ago. I don’t have loss aversion from leaving them. I don’t know what I’m missing, I guess, and that’s good.
