Up until now, Instagram profiles have only been viewable from the app (or through some sort of a third-party site/client). But AllThingsD reports that you’ll now be able to fire up any web browser and have access to any public Instagram account, making it approximately 1000000 per cent easier to stalk people using the service. Oh, and did I mention it basically looks like the design of its Facebook overlord?

The service had previously allowed you to view photos on a one-off basis (provided you had a direct link), and only recently allowed users to like and comment on photos from the browser. Now comes a much larger expansion out of the app and onto a more universal platform: HTML.

Like Facebook, each profile has a banner image up top which culls images from your instagram account, and a square overlay for a profile pic. But below is a design much cleaner and easier on the eyes. Thumbnails are laid out in a clean grid, organised by date. Click an image and you’re directed to the individual photo pages we’ve all seen before.

So far, the pages don’t seem to be live to the public, but by all accounts they’re on their way over the next few days to bring visual joy to our laptops and tablets. [Instagram via AllThingsD]