Are there any functioning android app alternatives to Barinsta/Instagrabber/for Instagram?
I've looked through most posts here and on reddit and it seems pretty bleak, but maybe someone here knows an app that's somehow miraculously unaffected by the rate limiting?
I know I could just not use instagram at all, but I mostly use it to keep up with local and international activism and most of these organizations don't have their own website and it would suck to have to either reinstall the official app or use the desktop version just for that.
I don't know how well this fits your usecase, but Proxigram is a selfhostable website with which you can access Instagram anonymously. I don't think it supports following accounts in any way though.
I did also try making an android app for it, but that app is barely even able to display posts, and as I realized that I just don't use Instagram, I didn't really bother continuing it.
If anyone here is in the mood to make that app happen, feel free to use my humble beginnings as a starting point.
Instagram Lite is an okay alternative to the bigger, main client and since it's official, it won't get you banned. It's not available in most markets, but sideloading from APKMirror works very well.
instaloader can scrape instagram accounts. do note that they'll ban your account if you use it in a 'suspicious' way, i.e. downloading multiple times or simultaneously.
you can setup a cron job on your *nix machine and setup a script to notify for new files (posts).