How to View Instagram Stories on the Web

While most of the drama has settled over Instagram shamelessly ripping off Snapchat Stories, you might still have strong opinions when it comes to how necessary the new feature is. But it looks like Instagram does have one more advantage (or just extra feature) over Snapchat, though small — Insta lets you browse from your desktop, and with a new Chrome plugin, you can watch Stories as you scroll through your feed from a web browser. Do you need it? No. But you can have it, and isn't that what the Internet is all about?

You have to have Chrome installed as your browser in order to use the plugin, but it's free to download and the plugin is free to install. If you need yet another platform to keep up your social media prowess, here's how to install the Chrome IG Story plugin:

1. Follow this link to the Chrome Web Store and Click "Add to Chrome" in the upper right-hand corner.

2. Click "add extension" if you're cool with Chrome accessing your Instagram account.

3. From here, the extension will automatically start to download. The blue "Add to Chrome" button should now be green, indicating that your download is complete.

4. Go to Instagram.com to test out the plugin. Just like the Instagram app, you should now be able to see the Stories you follow appear at the top of your feed.

5. You can now watch Stories by clicking on them. Instead of swiping to the next Story, navigate by clicking arrows on the left and right of the screen. You can exit Stories by clicking anywhere outside of the bounds of the arrows.