A free app for both Windows and Mac computers enables direct uploading of images to Instagram, as well as browsing photos posted by others.

The Windowed browser with a new posting to my Instagram account.

Windowed acts like a mobile browser so Instagram will allow connectivity. if you're a Mac user, you'll have to approve opening Windowed via the Security Preference because it's not an Apple approved app. Depending on how you feel about operating outside the Apple walled garden, Windowed may or may not be an app that you want to try. And for that matter, I'm guessing that it violates the Instagram user agreement as well. Be sure to consider all of these factors before downloading.

If you do decide to give it a spin, it's fairly intuitive to operate. When you click on the camera button, you're prompted to select an image from your computer. You might want to square crop it first, because you don't have any cropping ability within Windowed. IG filters are not available either. What you upload is what you get.

That being said, in my test, the picture did appear in my feed, and the caption was included. So Windowed appears to be a useful option for posts directly from the desktop. Plus, you can manage multiple Instagram accounts with this app. That's a real plus.

We've seen these types of apps come and go. The Windowed developer has already made improvements to the software, so many this one will stick around for a while... that is, if Instagram doesn't clip its wings.

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.