Today's huge tech news has been the acquisition of photo sharing app Instagram by Facebookfor a cool billion dollars.
Although Facebook and the six-person staff of Instagram are thrilled with their new business arrangement, some users don't seem equally excited so far. Consider the sampling of initial responses on Twitter:
@danrubin: "I don't think anyone's suggesting @instagram should have said no — there's just general distrust when Facebook acquires services we love."
@jessicakyoung: "my initial thought is.. Boo."
@josholalia: "Time to cancel my @instagram account before Facebook violates that veil of privacy."
If privacy concerns are powerful enough to push you toward canceling your Instagram account, here's how to do it while saving your pics in the process:
Getting rid of your account is pretty straightforward. Instagram has a Web link available that walks users through the process of deleting your account. Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a way to do this through the mobile app.
As for saving those post-filter images, users have two options:
Check your settings. Instagram has an option to save the filtered photos to your device's library. If it's turned on, users should have all those images already tucked away on their smartphone, tablet or other device. From there, users can choose whether to keep them on their device or export them to their computer or other location.
Use Instaport. If images aren't saved to your device, there's a cool Web service called Instaport.me, which lets users export all their Instagram images onto a local hard drive.