Instagram appears to be caught up in an ever-accelerating vortex of app updates, tweaks, new options, and modifications. The feed is completely different now from what it was earlier than—and if you end up wistful for an Insta with out Reels, incessant sponsored content material, and steered posts, know that you simply’re not alone.

Two app builders, Ansh Nanda and Hardik Patil additionally felt that manner (and, clearly, so did Kylie Jenner.) So, Nanda and Patil created the OG App, which may be discovered within the iOS and Android app shops. OG doesn’t supply a brand new platform completely, however slightly a manner for customers to customise the Instagram they see, in accordance with a report from Tech Crunch.

The app routinely eliminates advertisements and steered posts on its filtered model of the Instagram feed. Additional OG options let customers toggle Reels and the “Explore” web page on or off. Users may also create completely different feeds for various wants, much like Twitter’s checklist ideas, wrote Tech Crunch. Finally, OG goals to provide customers extra management over their very own social media utilization. Tright here’s an choice to show off feed updates for twenty-four hours at a time, which may make it simpler for individuals to step away from their telephones.

“We saw our friends and family getting affected by social media, and even deleting apps because they didn’t have enough options to modify what they see. We wanted to put users, and not the advertisers, first with this app. We started with Instagram because we thought the app has the most toxic relationship with its users,” Nanda and Patil reportedly informed Tech Crunch.

What is it like to make use of?

But, although noble in idea, the app has some…quirks in its present type. My colleague on the buyer tech desk, Florence Ion, famous that the onboarding course of takes awhile—there’s lots to click on by way of. The app additionally cuts off a sliver of the highest of the Insta interface on a OnePlus 9 operating Android 12, she mentioned. And lastly, in Android, it takes some time to construct the “custom feed.”

In iOS, Ion additionally confronted points. The “iOS version took a while to “build the feed” inside minutes of setting it up,” she mentioned. And then added, “I’ve been unable to get my actual feed to populate. It is worth noting that I’m on iOS 16.1 Beta 3 right now, so that may be an issue with my software.”

In abstract of her utilization, Ion informed me “it is not very fluid,” evaluating her expertise to tapping by way of the net interface, not the usual telephone app.

What about privateness?

Downloading into an exterior app to entry Instagram might really feel like a foul concept, however a minimum of when it comes to privateness, OG appears to have customers coated. The app’s policy is refreshingly easy and simple. “We collect limited personal information from you. This information may include your name (or username), phone numbers, and email addresses. We only use this information to let you log into The OG App,” the corporate says on their web site.

Unfortunately, Meta-owned Instagram nonetheless collects your entire information, because it sees match, in accordance with a report from 9To5Mac, on the OG App. And, Giz’s client tech knowledgeable wasn’t too comfortable about having to login along with her Google account earlier than signing into Instagram on Android. “I’m guessing this is to save my user preferences when I make a custom feed,” Ion informed me. Though nonetheless she mentioned she was “a little wary,” of the step.

What’s subsequent?

Instagram has come underneath fireplace in current months for a number of the modifications to its platform—together with a set of algorithm shifts that reportedly left customers’ feeds clogged with undesirable content material. Things acquired so unhealthy, the social media large needed to situation one other spherical of updates. So, it is sensible that OG’s founders went the place the extensively publicized dissatisfaction has been.

But the corporate that owns OG App, Un1feed, isn’t completed. Nanda, Patil, and their startup group plan so as to add extra options to OG, like shareable customized feeds and extra feed filters. Then, they might broaden to extra apps. Perhaps we’ll find yourself with an “OG” Twitter, a retro Snapchat, or a Ye Olde Facebook. And possibly a number of the unique kinks in OG may also be ironed out.