A self-described ‘Web standards fanatic’ named Mathias Bynens discovered that Facebook and Instagram are automatically making ASCII art versions of every photo you upload, that is, recreating your images out of text characters — out of your photos and anyone can find it. And accessing the lo-fi versions of your images is super easy.
? append .txt ? ASCII art? append .html ? colored ASCII art
E.g. https://t.co/GgnN8HJii4
— Mathias Bynens (@mathias) January 28, 2016
The user has only to append “.html” after that image’s “.jpg” marker to find the ASCII magic in a Facebook image or an Instagram image. Here is how simple it is :
Instagram or Facebook: 1. In your Chrome web browser, tap View – Developer – View Source. 2. Search for “.jpg” 3. Copy/paste URLs as you find them – here’s an example:https://instagram.ffar1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/12353918_1642497756023987_1104642188_n.jpg 4. Add .html to the end of the URL and here it how it will turn out :
If you wish to make your Facebook or Instagram image into ASCII art, you first need to find the specific URL for the image. Copy the URL, open a new browser window and paste the URL in the address bar. Then, simply add .html to the end of the image URL to get a color ASCII version. This same method works with “.txt” at the end of an image URL in Instagram or Facebook. If you use .txt, you’ll find the same image, only this time it’ll be in black and white instead of color. Do note that for the magic to work, the photo needs to be public, or it won’t work. If there are any additional characters after .jpg then it won’t work, even if you delete the extra characters first. It’s also a bit harder to find URLs on Instagram as you can’t simply right-click to get the code. For example, in Chrome, you will need to right-click then click Inspect and hunt down the URL code ending with .jpg. Have you had tried the ASCII art yet? Do let us know your thoughts and experience in the comments section below.
