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Windows Phone gets its own Instagram app, unofficially

What to do when there's no official Instagram app from Facebook? A new app called 6Tag aims to fill the bill, and it's catching on.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney
2 min read
6tag is an Instagram app for Windows Phone users.
6tag is an Instagram app for Windows Phone users. Rudy Huyn

Windows Phone users can now tap into Instagram through a third-party app.

Served up by French developer and Microsoft MVP Rudy Huyn, 6tag for Windows Phone seems to provide all of the features you'd find in an official Instagram app.

The 6tag app lets you upload and share your photos and videos, customize them via filters, and check out photos from your friends.

You can share your favorite photos on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, and Foursquare. The app offers an array of filters, including XPro-II, Earlybird, Rise, Amaro, Hudson, and Lo-fi. And you can tag your posts with your location.

What about an official Instagram app? Instagram owner Facebook has reportedly created an app for Windows Phone but has been unable to release it, according to The Verge.

As the only option at the moment, 6tag seems to taking off. The app has received an overall five-star rating among the more than 1,100 people who've reviewed it thus far.

There are a couple of potential caveats, however.

6tag is an unofficial third-party app and could stop working if Facebook decides to change any of its APIs (application programming interfaces).

Some Windows Phone developers have also expressed concerns about privacy issues, The Verge said. Developer Rafael Rivera noted that 6tag allegedly keeps copies of both public and private videos and doesn't encrypt your account information, such as your username and authentication token. The Verge is waiting for a response on these reported issues from both Huyn and Microsoft.

But Huyn already seems to have sprung into action. As described in a series of tweets, he has apparently already updated his app to address at least a couple of the concerns.