What are our alternatives to photobucket?

chazmo

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Folks, I used to happily recommend using photobucket for free picture hosting. It was great back in the day. But apparently the free business model has not worked for them and using photobucket these days is an exercise in frustration. It's been getting worse and worse there, and is now all but unusable. I'm done, and I'm sure that I'm not alone.

This morning I tried using Google Photos and creating a link to a photo in a thread. The link works if you click on it, but there was no obvious way to get a picture inside of the [ img][ /img] tags. Is there a way to get an image URL out of Google Photos? I suspect not, but I might've missed something.

Anyway, I'm looking for some help with options. Before updating Dave's stickied thread, I thought I'd ask folks what the options are that they know of and what they think.
 

killdeer43

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I've had an imageshack account for years of smooth sailing but recently, for some unknown reason, I can't communicate with them about paying my bill, even though I still have access to over 2K photos.
I guess I can't complain if they're not taking my money but still allowing access. It's still a mystery.
Bottom line is that the site itself works well for me. :single_eye:

Joe
 

chazmo

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Joe, is there a free option at imageshack?

Photobucket offers to stop advertising, but you have to pay. I don't go for that.
 

Bonneville88

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The Photobucket thing is wild... "alternatives to photobucket" and variants must be one of the most
googled searches lately!

I've been a happy paying Photobucket customer for years with an online business, countless photos
hosted on PB, as a 3rd party image hosting it generally worked very well for me and my customers.

Like others, surprised that new, least expensive payment option to continue 3rd party image hosting is $400 / yr... quite a jump.

So I'm with you Chazmo... exploring options. Have been moving some things to Google Photos as of late, but as
you've pointed out, the the 3rd party hosting using image tags are problematic, and others have posted
that even if you figure it out, the image link is temporary.

One promising thing I've read is to open up a site on Blogger and post images there - haven't tried it yet but I will.

Pretty good list of things to look at here
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/650637/photobucket-alternatives/
 
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chazmo

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I could be wrong but it seems they're not only inundating free customers with ads, they're blocking 3rd party hosting entirely. So, all my pictures over the years are now invisible? I haven't confirmed this yet, but if they're doing that, I'd run away as fast as possible.
 

AcornHouse

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I could be wrong but it seems they're not only inundating free customers with ads, they're blocking 3rd party hosting entirely. So, all my pictures over the years are now invisible? I haven't confirmed this yet, but if they're doing that, I'd run away as fast as possible.
Yep. I was checking on an older post of mine for,someone, and, sure enough, there were the ubiquitous "we're holding your pics hostage" messages from PB.
I've started using a free Wordpress site to stash pics and link to.
 

fronobulax

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Log into Google. Open photos. Click on the one you want. Because you use Firefox on Windows you now do a right click, Copy Image Location, come over to LTG and paste the location between the IMG tags.



You can also click on the picture you want, press the stupid share thingie that looks like a < with balls, choose the generate link and then do the copy paste thing. You may join me in being frustrated because that share link cannot be embedded here, cause it is not a picture.

IeL4ab6a4GOy7oBEfhWUXp5imkqIrY0s0EHwgwfV0WkPIq-xyRr-Dz5kJ2G-8uGQOMWBXCh_l_d9U2PMQuCfvKl7U3HVuD64PfuLe4xXOjH4BXvFJoZspjUpZnJjzgrmyoHkWHdwZ3P17sA3yIOXhw5_iA1GsGsBK27ftb-_Ofx7Q_18xHNdP4JnLHcf-YW3vGIkAXog8ONlDI16VNAs1O5sJraiKPS9x0-hOFUsm8VG28HfU_hVBQfNnwMMYmKdYpl3DLLBQ9bsqBofij6fgWBoP0-pEpIQDWkDPjya8hAfV83RLHYtjhYrwpl_QEjN_KRGM3JdxAxouRnNi5tywV7fEQS2Ok-tURdCtcBg56n-DMwDq73DoOxmcqez1VTBxatAaEsnmnnPxuad7hNCvIGa5VEokGOh2P835gLQzjTnQsrl3KRh89Zd9TX45izUsQ4WrtKXEq6UvMX9btaK-XrbzPtmBE3cznJSMPdOFN2N8EREHPHPjCEvGfRSzNxo5OxXOIjTpzpwtvznTnQtP5s7HLCXKkTTtgcoqZvneuPiKVP7eshG8-J2qIWx-lnRv3Br0m7lUX0jJpzGc79REBHcaCXMExCMGGizvMMaD7r65vUGHeZISNzM=w858-h1520-no


That is a lot of work if only because you are logged in on two different sites and you click a few times before you can get the link. I can live with that because I don't post a lot of pictures. Google Photos will synch devices to the cloud so it is relatively painless to use the phone camera and then link to it.

A friend had a friend who scored four bottles of Pliny the Elder for him. The procurer tried one and liked it so much he tried a second. My friend shared one with me. I am glad I can say I have tasted it but after being bottled and traveling across the country it was not the best beer I have ever tasted. But if you drink craft beer it is a Grail beer or perhaps like adding an ivory-billed woodpecker to your life list.
 
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killdeer43

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Joe, is there a free option at imageshack?
They offer a 30-day free trial and then you pay monthly or annually for Premium membership, which I've had/have and it runs about $38 a year.
As I said before, I've tried to pay and I haven't been successful. But I can still access my pics.
It's almost like they're floating out there in cyberspace and no one's answering the phone.

Go figure
Joe
 

Bonneville88

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Frono - that's cool! - but will the image still be here 30 days from now?
Several things I've read indicate the link is temporary and will expire in
about that time frame. I guess we can use this as a test and find out!

9HcxZ6pZlGaF9L6zHJttwjXYb1vV_ppDS6v1WtmYxypLQNnIW0nVssi-YBBVTSCSIBUUbXVOHrdC1MQzluuSJedGsqTCd-0R8mJi2htArHJr_hI6StVBsIaxHoBknUBosZsWVkw1wL_QQRtD1EEgr2JpGsjqs1eTaZizRvV9P8RUEOxF6MLlTPq0zFQKMD5Dty4aASDMQols3PhzvAJGy3EYpcBL3S199E2P6_gqHPAlh2WvtgMawt0g825tBQaC4KtRhnFsrplmobnUugiC_GI0kdN26ggoGOfCuMbEKjes8UshNSur8vs57Xw38LE-ukEjGtcgq2izR2ZK0q0KP-Y5zGdUGPgLRM8wi-q39NjzkmCin0qEsAJnkHDa-tNOtSea2qRoeBI7vxNalTDdVT8bfN2WJFo3P3LzGtAuTV5ZztZDIccjC6IRTy8cSQk0cGurMBnMTyvWorhwwuo-D2_lpfOo8c3FwKLnSBTz2NQ-xi4RuWyBswYY6QClwnTH91NCMj5zQA1HJZNILdQ59ofRPSuF3Bc_oCcZf-wIcjUlGf08uilZ3-E8_MDh9MP0g5KHHfBTUPSlRVuHdQaIBmiodbth-r4CqJThjUa9POAxLui5IJBT=w1090-h727-no
 
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dreadnut

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Not to be Captain Obvious, but why can't LTG be modified to upload photos directly from our computers?
 

txbumper57

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I an a Faithful Imageshack user as well. Right at $25-$35 bucks a year and completely unlimited storage as well as easy and fast access to all my images. I was a paid customer with Imageshack when they still had the free option because I didn't want any ads. Now it is a pay only site and extremely reasonable when you think about what photobucket is putting people through. Personally I won't even click n a photo or photo link if it is a Photobucket link. The last time I did adblocker blocked over 300 ads alone.

TX
 

twocorgis

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I use Flickr (Yahoo), and have been very pleased with their "pro" plan. $25 a year, and unlimited storage seems to be a pretty good value to me.
 

GAD

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Frono, I can't see your photo.

I don't run LTG, but I have and do run other forums. There are reasons why forums don't host photos:

1) It adds liability
2) It consumes disk space
3) It consumes bandwidth
4) Disk space and bandwidth cost money

Photobucket is evil because they broke the Internet and are demanding payment to fix it, but free photo hosting is and has always been a bad business model IMO. First, for them because they're losing money. Second, when you store your data (any data) in the cloud, you're just using someone else's computer and that someone else can (and will) do something like this eventually.

Why did Photobucket do this? My assumption is that they are hemorrhaging money thanks to hotlinking and 99% of their users expecting free service. From a "common good" standpoint what they did is evil. From a business standpoint, shutting down hotlinking should have been done years ago (though in a smoother, less evil way).

Asking LTG to host the photos is just moving the problem to someone else's computer, though it could be argued that we all trust the team at LTG more than the faceless evil that is Photobucket. Still, I get it - few can or want to run their own photo hosting site these days.

IMO, if I were running LTG as it stands today, I would consider adding the ability to upload photos in return for a paid membership. This helps the users while allowing the site to offset the cost of doing so.
 

fronobulax

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Frono - that's cool! - but will the image still be here 30 days from now?
Several things I've read indicate the link is temporary and will expire in
about that time frame. I guess we can use this as a test and find out!

I had not read that. My search suggests there might be a difference between a link generated from the share thingie < and saving a real URL to a real jpg file. But I can't tell for sure either. See you in 30 days?
 

Bonneville88

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Update - Frono - neither of our images are now viewable from here... that was quick, more
like 30 minutes.

GAD - agreed - well stated!

TX, will check it out.
 
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fronobulax

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Not to be Captain Obvious, but why can't LTG be modified to upload photos directly from our computers?

Last time the subject was discussed the following were some of the reasons. Note that Don owns, runs and pays for the site so any decisions are his alone even when he does consult the Moderators.


  • Hosting images on LTG requires space to store them. If enough space is used it will cost Don more money.
  • Hosting images on LTG uses bandwidth when they are displayed. If LTG uses too much bandwidth it will either slow the site to a crawl or cost Don more money. If images are hosted at LTG then they can be linked to on third party sites which consumes bandwidth that is not even used for LTG purposes.
  • Hosting images on LTG exposes LTG, and ultimately Don to the threat of legal action. If a LTG member posted a copyrighted image and the copyright holder chose to take legal action, the site owner would be the target. If an LTG member posted child porn the site owner could be charged with distribution.

That said, it has been a while since this was last discussed. Rates for hosting have changed so the cost for storage or bandwidth might be trivial enough that they are no longer an issue. Many other sites host pictures for users even though that is not the primary reason those sites exist. It may be possibly to have Terms of Service that all LTG users have to agree to and those Terms of service protect Don.

Sound like the Mods need to mention this to Don again.
 

chazmo

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So, are we coming up with nothing for a free alternative? That's sad. Yes, photobucket should be tarred and feathered. It's disturbing what they've done, but of course, whining about it here won't change anything.

GAD's post pretty much cements what I was thinking. I will bring this up with our site admin, but it's territory we've been over before.
 

fronobulax

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Frono, I can't see your photo.

Insert language that is not appropriate for a family friendly web site.

I created a shared album in Google Photos, tired to set the permissions so that anyone can see it and grabbed the Image Location (as before) from teh shared album just in case the URLs were different. Will play with caches and other browsers to check visibility momentarily.
 

fronobulax

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Dropbox is a possibility as well.

The process is not straight forward and whatever I remember isn't working but I know it can be done and I will eventually do so and let people know how.
 
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