The rapidly growing Instagram application used to share photos and videos is at its peak today. With each update, more and more opportunities are offered to users, thanks to which the social network is already becoming global. The implementation of the live broadcast function further piqued the interest of the public. In fact, this is an online video recording with the ability to comment, which, moreover, can be saved. Thanks to this feature, celebrities, businessmen, bloggers, as well as ordinary users can conduct live broadcasts for various purposes (for example, communication with fans, live advertising, informing subscribers about the company’s work, services, and other issues). Ordinary mortals can now reach the stars by spying on someone else’s life through Instagram. For people,whose accounts were created in support of professional activities, there are new opportunities to increase interest in their person, product, etc.
The idea, by the way, is not new, similar functionality has already been implemented in Facebook and Periscope, nevertheless, the new feature that appeared in Instagram in early 2017 attracted everyone’s attention and was warmly received by the public. So now live streaming on Instagram is the number one trend. Anyone can attract the attention of the audience. At the same time, the live broadcasts of the owners of Instagram profiles do not always carry a semantic load, so do not be surprised if the host of the broadcast behaves strangely, inappropriate behavior is not uncommon. Since the feature is available to everyone and everyone, in a fit of frantic desire to speak out and make themselves known, users sometimes forget about decency. Basically, all the same broadcasts are thematic and are created with a specific purpose, whether it is attraction to business, contact with subscribers, training, etc., or maybethe broadcaster just wanted to share his thoughts on any occasion. Not all users know how to find and watch a live stream on Instagram, this is the question we will deal with.
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How to find live streaming on Instagram
The broadcasts are displayed on the top bar above the news feed, where the stories are. So, if the user you are subscribed to is now live, then the thumbnail of his account will be outlined with a colored ring, and the corresponding inscription “Live” will appear under it. You can join the view from the profile of the person who records the video online (at the bottom of the user’s avatar there will be a standard button in the form of a triangle “Play”). Only the user who organized the shooting can save content to devices for subsequent publication or other purposes, but this function is not available for viewers, so other people’s saved broadcasts can be viewed when the profile owner posts them on his page. In this case, at the top of the recording will indicate when the broadcast was held.
Popular Instagram live streams can be viewed from the main search page. At the same time, the video is available in the recommendations if it is viewed by more than 500 users. You can receive notifications about the start of broadcasts if you subscribe to a profile. Thus, the organization of communication with subscribers is more effective. The profile owner also has the ability to hide the broadcast from certain persons by specifying them in the settings, since no matter what the purpose of the broadcast is (to increase the number of subscribers, inform about something, etc.), different personalities can join it. including unwanted ones.
How to watch from your phone
You can connect to the broadcast at any time of the broadcast, you do not have to go at the beginning, and also watch the recorded live broadcast of a friend if he posted it on his Instagram page. A confident user does not have any questions about how to do this, but many users have just started to join the ranks of Instagram fans and have not yet had time to navigate. It is very easy to watch the broadcast from an iOS or Android phone:
- First you need to open the application on your smartphone and log in.
- Above the feed, we see thumbnails, select the desired profile (in a colored circle with the inscription “Live broadcast”) or find a popular broadcast in the search. If you are not subscribed to the user whose broadcast you want to watch, you can find him in the search, after which, by clicking on the main photo (avatar), we connect to the live broadcast (the owner will see the joined users).
During the viewing process, you can leave comments in the comment field below, click likes, and if you do not keep up with the unfolding events on the air, you can rewind the chat.
How to watch from a computer
The web version of Instagram has limited functionality, so you will need to install additional tools to watch live streams on your computer. There will be no problems with this, the necessary software is available on official resources (in the application store, on the developer’s website). You can provide the conditions for the ability to watch live broadcast on the Instagram social network from a computer by the following means:
- Android emulator.
- Instagram app.
- Browser extension.
Android emulator
We will emulate the Android environment on a computer in order to launch a mobile application using the popular BlueStacks application. If you have an emulator, launching it, you get the opportunity to work in the same way as if you were using a smartphone, including downloading and using mobile software. To get started, the Android simulator needs to be installed into the system by downloading the distribution kit from the developer’s official website. The procedure is standard – download, choose the installation path, accept the terms of the agreement, after which the installation is performed automatically. Next, we perform the following actions:
- Launch BlueStacks. On the first launch, you will have to wait a little while the program scans the system and applies the appropriate settings.
- After completing the setup process, you need to log in to your Google account.
- Having logged in, we go to the “Application Center” tab, from where any applications for Android will be available to us. In the search field on the right, we drive in the Instagram request.
- Among the results, select the first official Instagram client in the list and install it by clicking the appropriate button. After installation, the software will appear in the “My Applications” tab.
- Click on the Instagram icon, after launch, enter the authorization data for your profile.
- Now, you can watch live streams of users on Instagram through a computer in the same way as on a smartphone. At the top of the interface, thumbnails of friends’ profiles are available, and those who are streaming will be marked. Select the broadcast by clicking on the avatar.
Instagram app for Windows 10
For earlier versions of the Windows operating system, for example, if you have a “Seven”, this method will not work. We use it when there is a “Ten” on the computer. To watch a live stream on Instagram from a computer, do the following:
- Install the application from the Microsoft store.
- We launch the software, enter the profile authorization data (if not, create it).
- Stories will now be available at the top of the interface. If a user starts broadcasting, his profile thumbnail will be marked with a “Live” icon and you can join the broadcast.
Browser extension
Another way to watch live streams on Instagram involves installing a special Chrome IG Story add-on for the Google Chrome browser, for which we follow these steps:
- In the Chrome browser, go to the extension store.
- In the left block in the store search bar, enter the query Chrome IG Story.
- Select the desired add-on from the list of results and install it by pressing the appropriate button, confirming the action.
- After installation, the extension will be available in the browser section (three dots in the upper right corner of the interface, select “Additional tools” – “Extensions”), where you can manage all installed add-ons (enable, disable, uninstall).
- Click on the extension icon, as a result of which a window with user stories will open, to go to broadcasts, click “Explore”, live broadcasts will be available here. To join the view, simply click on the desired broadcast.
You can search for broadcasts by name, tag or geolocation. In addition to accessing live broadcasts, you will also have the opportunity to download user stories to your computer.
How to watch live stream on Instagram anonymously
The user who created the broadcast can only see the number of viewers. You can see who is specifically present only by comments and likes, as well as when a person just joined. If you do not want to show your presence, act as an observer, just watch the broadcast without commenting on anything or pressing hearts. At the same time, many do not want to show even their appearance for a short time. To watch Instagram Stories or Live Stream anonymously, there is one effective spy method that doesn’t even require you to register an Instagram profile. We only need the Telegram messenger installed on the device. It is interesting, including the fact that it makes it possible to use functional bots for various purposes. So, to view stories and live streams incognito,we will use the IgSpyBot bot built into Telegram:
- Open the messenger, go through the account authorization (create a profile, if you do not have one) and go to “Contacts”.
- In the search line, enter the @igspybot bot address, select it when it appears in the results and add it to contacts.
- We launch the bot in the dialogue window with it.
- We send a message to the bot, the content of which will be @ nickname of the user whose broadcast, story, etc. we will watch. We must put the dog in front of the name, we send it.
- In the menu that appears, select the user’s broadcasts and the desired broadcast from those available in the list.
- We are waiting for the content to be downloaded, after which we can view or download it to the device.
Live broadcasts on the network are no longer a novelty, and watching broadcasts, as well as creating them, is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. After reading the detailed instructions on how to do this, even inexperienced users do not have any questions.