Instagram app

đź”™ đź’­

Instagram wants you to use the app

Instagram loads its “reels” using URL.createObjectURL to play the video.

When you start scrolling, Instagram preloads five videos by creating five object URLs.

screenshot of the 5 object

Then you scroll more, and it starts to load more videos.

However, Instagram never calls URL.revokeObjectURL to free the memory.

As a result, the memory usage of the tab increases, and at a certain point, the tab may crash.

I guess it’s to annoy encourage you to use the app.

Moral of the story: read the docs stop scrolling.