Did you know that Facebook and Instagram have a “secret” feature that converts your photos to ASCII? By making a small change to your photo URLs, you can view them in color or black and white ASCII characters
The information came online from developer Mathias Bynens on Twitter and has piqued the interest of users.
As he says, the trick is extremely simple and works for both sites. All you have to do is add .txt or .html to the end of the photo's URL to view it in ASCII format. With txt it will be black and white and with html it will be in color.
For example, if this is your usual URL from Facebook or Instagram..
https://scontent-ams3-1.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/11906246_1700002456899911_1391970345_n.jpg
…. then just add .txt to the end to see it in a black and white ASCII version:
https://scontent-ams3-1.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/11906246_1700002456899911_1391970345_n.jpg.txt
… Or add .html to see in colored ASCII:
https://scontent-ams3-1.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/11906246_1700002456899911_1391970345_n.jpg.html
The process is the same for photos on Facebook, although in our tests we had difficulty finding a photo on it whose URL address did not end in ?oh=something. The trick does not work on these URLs.
Of course, on both sites, while the conversion is a simple process, finding the original URL of the image is quite laborious. For Instagram, you can view the source code in your browser and search for it there. And on Facebook, right-clicking on images unfortunately won't get you the correct URL format.
But if you are able to find the right way that will give the actual URL, then you can play with this fun feature.
