I've noticed there are sites like Goonview that let you check out Instagram profiles, both public and private, without appearing in the viewer list. Normally, the official Instagram APIs require the account owner to authorize your app for any kind of access. I remember there was a JSON endpoint for stories, but it seems that's no longer available. At first, I thought these services might be using tools like Apify or a headless browser to log in with an account, but when I checked my own profile on Goonview, it showed no one was added to my story viewer list. So, how exactly do these services manage to do this?
2 Answers
I haven't personally tried Goonview or similar sites. Does anyone have experiences with them to share?
These sites might be scraping the web version of Instagram without logging in. It's a method where they pull data directly from the site instead of going through the official API.
Yeah, but keep in mind that Instagram's web view typically blocks you after about 6 posts if you aren't logged in, which makes it tricky.