Getting Started
Instafun is easy to download and there’s no initial setup required to use it. Once downloaded from the Mac App Store and opened, you’ll see a smiley face in your menu bar. The smiley face will be blue at first (explained below), but when you click to open the app, it turns black.
Usage and Interface
Instafun currently gives you access to the mobile versions of three popular sites: 9gag, CHEEZburger and LOLsnaps. Each site has it’s own tab and you must use the slider at the top to switch between them. One thing I noticed is that the icons for each site (at the top) are a bit blurry.
As you can see from the screenshot above, navigating in Instafun is easy. There are arrows in the top left corner so that you can easily go back and forth between pages. On the far right there are buttons for sharing, opening the current view in a browser and settings. The sharing button allows you to send images to email, Messages/iMessage, Twitter or Facebook. In settings you can choose to: start Instafun automatically (at login), remind you to have fun, and play a sound with reminder your reminder. Instafun will remind you to have fun every 15 minutes; unfortunately there’s no way to customize this. It’s nice to have an unobtrusive reminder to have fun. Every 15 minutes you’ll see the smiley face turn from black to blue. If you enable sound to go along with your reminder, you’ll hear a short laugh as well. Although I must admit that the laugh sound is borderline creepy – especially if you’re home alone and it’s quiet in the house and your volume is up loud.
9gag
9GAG is described as “the easiest way for you to discover and share fun.” You can sign up for a free account, but it’s not required. If you want like or dislike images as well as add comments, you’ll need an account. You can sign up right through the Instafun app. If you click on “Browse” at the top, you can turn safe mode on/off. You can also see What’s Hot, Trending images and vote.
If you’re using this app from work, it’s probably best to keep safe mode on. The filter does not totally remove unsafe images, instead it blocks them out and adds a “NSFW” tag next to them (see screenshot above).
LOLsnaps
Accounts are not needed or supported at LOLsnaps, since you can’t vote on images. You can, however, view the latest, most popular and random images using the top navigation. Sadly, LOLsnaps seems to show more ads than images per page, so that can be a bit annoying.
CHEEZburger
Finally we have the CHEEZburger Network, which is a favorite of mine. Although you don’t need an account, you’ll want to sign up so that you can like and dislike images, add to your favorites and share on Facebook. I tried to find a way to sign up through the app, but failed to find a signup/login link. I have an account on the CHEEZburger Network, so I know that it is possible.
If you click on the + (plus) button at the top right corner, you’ll get a drop-down list displaying links to all of the fun image sites in CHEEZburger’s network. Along with displaying featured images on the home page and allowing you to vote, you can also search for images by keyword.
Final Thoughts
I’m sure that some may find this Mac app a bit cheesy, but I like the idea of having fun images to view right from my menu bar. Instafun has great intentions and I feel that it delivers nicely. The next time you need a break just click on the smiley face, view a few images and have a laugh – it’s free! What do you think of Instafun? Instafun
