Alternatives to Photobucket

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Photobucket is no longer allowing hotlinking to images on Photobucket unless you upgrade to a pricey account.

Your images are still there, you can download them, you just can't link to images hosted on Photobucket without paying the hefty $400.00 fee.

While I'm sympathetic to the annoyance value of breaking a twenty year old practice with short notice, and I agree that Photobucket appears to be developing a sideline of extortion, your best option is to move on.

This thread isn't the place to complain about Photobucket

It sucks, it's done, and it's likely the death knell for Photobucket.

This is a place to post your impressions and suggestions for alternatives. I'll update this post with options. Note that copyright restrictions (don't post /upload images you don't have the rights for) and illegal uploading (porn, malware etc.) restrictions apply.

Be wary that other services may have updates to their TOS in response.

Make sure that you read their TOS and that they allow hotlinking.

Note that some services will allow it, but will also remove your account access with little or no notice.

You can link to images you host on your own Website or blog. Or you might find one of these image hosting alternatives work for you.

As I have time, I'll test them on AW.

Image Hosting Alternatives

Imgur

Imgur.com
TOS.

Flickr
Flickr.com
Verizon bought Flickr when they bought Yahoo. I have no idea what will happen.
Guidelines

Google Photos

Google Photos

I have no idea on this one; I don't use it currently because of some of their TOS and privacy provisions.

I haven't yet tested DropBox or GoogleDrive post the Photobucket change.
 
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Ari Meermans

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A note and a reminder wrt Google Photos: Google retired Picasa, which had very niiice editing capabilities. As of today, Google has not enhanced Google Photos' editing capabilities to match those of Picasa and editing in Google Photos quite frankly sucks right now. What this means is that, in addition to TOS and privacy concerns, you can't reduce images such as your book covers in Google Photos to meet AW image posting standards.

It also means that until I can regroup on a new editor, I won't be able to help with images for a while.
 

Matera the Mad

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IMHO IrfanView is the Gold Standard for fast photo work. I still use it in Linux! I never use anything that wants to take control of my pics, catalog them and create "albums" in a proprietary database that is useless when - as Picasa has, as many others have - the program dies.
 

AZ_Dawn

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I've tried googling for alternatives, but most of the results are from forums and most of the rest aren't very helpful.

AlternativeTo has a plethora of suggestions, but not a lot of info. gHacks has a small list of alternatives, and has some info on Imgur that makes me wary of it.

gHacks said:
While you may hotlink to images uploaded to Imgur, the service's Terms of Service forbid you explicitly from doing so. What it allows is to use the embed feature, but this may not work in many cases. Also this which does not bode well.

Hope this helps at least a little.
 

Roxxsmom

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I just used cubeupload to embed (or whatever it's called) a couple of photos into the birding forum here. It's much simpler to use than photobucket, and it isn't all slow and bogged down the way PB has been (at least for me, and my computer is no slouch) for years, and it works on Mozilla (my preferred browswer. I had to access photobucket from google chrome to access the editing features). It doesn't seem to have features that allow you to do any photo editing on site, but I haven't played around with it much yet. It allows you to link to either a full sized or thumbnail version of your uploaded photo, so if you want to display something in-between, you may have to modify the size of your images before uploading them to cubeload.
 

JetFueledCar

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A note and a reminder wrt Google Photos: Google retired Picasa, which had very niiice editing capabilities. As of today, Google has not enhanced Google Photos' editing capabilities to match those of Picasa and editing in Google Photos quite frankly sucks right now. What this means is that, in addition to TOS and privacy concerns, you can't reduce images such as your book covers in Google Photos to meet AW image posting standards.

It also means that until I can regroup on a new editor, I won't be able to help with images for a while.

*jumps up and down waving arms over head* I know this one! I KNOW THIS ONE!

It doesn't do hosting, but https://pixlr.com/ is FANTASTIC for editing pictures. I use both online versions. The Editor is quite in-depth, works in layers, lovely thing. Pixlr Express is what I use to quickly adjust the lighting and color properties of an image, or to make batches of icons out of a continuous set of images--it has prefabricated effects that can adjust the color qualities without manipulating each one individually. It's what I use to make my mock-up book covers. Both of them have options for resizing images, and the Editor version will even let you adjust the quality and compression if you save as a .jpg and will tell you what the resulting file size will be if it's an issue.

*settles down* I never worried about hosting images anywhere, though. So I can't help there. I used tinypic when I needed to post something, or uploaded to a blog somewhere.

(Also I didn't realize the cost was that high. I am now ESPECIALLY thankful to the person who paid for hosting for my favorite icon maker. I've been using her icons as reference or starting points for character faces for YEARS and I was worried she'd have to give up.)

ETA: Please excuse the childlike enthusiasm, I so rarely get to be useful with technology except to really old people who are happy to have me explain how to copy and paste. (And yes, they are usually old. The younger ones might need it explained, but they're not usually as happy about it.)
 
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Chris P

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I switched to Imgur a few weeks ago. For the teeny tiny amount I need it for it's okay. I wish the "resize" feature worked better to get photos to 400 wide to post here.
 

Maryn

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Please allow a low-tech person to chime in. If you run a Microsoft Windows PC, you can resize images on your own computer, then put the one that's the size you want on a host's website. Going back as far as I can recall, Windows has included Paint, which is not a sophisticated image program but can resize and crop reliably. I've used that capability to create avatars for years.
 

Chase

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Photobucket is no longer allowing hotlinking to images on Photobucket unless you upgrade to a pricey account.

To my too cynical point of view, Photobucket seems to follow Microsoft's bait 'n' switch lead: Hook 'em with freebies, then when victims need the service, charge 'em till they hurt.

Still a freebie, Post Images works very well. https://postimages.org/
 
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BenPanced

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Please allow a low-tech person to chime in. If you run a Microsoft Windows PC, you can resize images on your own computer, then put the one that's the size you want on a host's website. Going back as far as I can recall, Windows has included Paint, which is not a sophisticated image program but can resize and crop reliably. I've used that capability to create avatars for years.

For Mac users, Apple still includes Preview, which is similar to Paint. It's no Photoshop by any stretch but it's quick and easy.
 

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A free WordPress.com blog lets you store images and link to them.

You don't have to post ever on the blog.

Doesn't look like free accounts let you actually resize images.
 
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AZ_Dawn

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I tried out the non-registered part of Free Image Hosting to see if I want to register for their free account. I posted a few pictures in the Great AW Caption Contest. Nobody's said anything about the pictures giving them viruses or anything weird, but I noticed that Free Image Hosting shrunk a 571 x 480 pixel photo down to 360 x 303. Annoying, but still viewable. I hope that having an account will let you keep the photos at full size.
 

nighttimer

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Guess I missed the memo.

I put my blog of eight years in mothballs back in November 2016, and haven't updated it since (for reasons which are worthy of a thread itself, but I digress), and I haven't so much as barely glanced at it. However, I did recently have reason to go back to it and saw several of those broken photo links replaced by a "PLEASE UPDATE YOUR ACCOUNT TO ALLOW THIRD PARTY HOSTING" icon and didn't know what it meant. I simply replaced the now-vanished Photobucket pic with another soon-to-be-vanished pic because even I had the $400 to shell out I wouldn't.

What crushes me is my blog wasn't about cat pics and visual memories of where I spent my summer vacation. I wrote about news, arts, politics, and current events and what made the blog stand out was I used images to break up the text. I like a strong visual to compel the reader to keep reading, but unless I'm going to go back to swiping images off the web and slapping them up on my site (a big no-no), I'm going to have to find an alternative to Photobucket.

Unless I want eight years worth of blog with broken photos all over it. Dammit. :rant:
 

Layla Nahar

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Too bad they're asking for 400. le sigh. Analog dollars, digital dimes... Maybe it would be worth $20 to people. Maybe 30 or 40. But I'd say it's a sure bet they won't get 400. Sic transit

oops - sorry. I think I violated the OP. My thinking cap wasn't on and I don't have any idea about alternatives... I was a photobucket user for a long time. I'm definitely in the luddite camp without an instagram or anything like that.
 
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evangaline

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I've been using my Flickr acct. So far, no problems.
 

NathanBrazil

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I've been pretty happy with Flickr, but is there any way to load gifs? Or do I need to use Imgur for gif loading?
 

pat j

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Photobucket is no longer allowing hotlinking to images on Photobucket unless you upgrade to a pricey account.

Your images are still there, you can download them, you just can't link to images hosted on Photobucket without paying the hefty $400.00 fee.

While I'm sympathetic to the annoyance value of breaking a twenty year old practice with short notice, and I agree that Photobucket appears to be developing a sideline of extortion, your best option is to move on.

This thread isn't the place to complain about Photobucket

It sucks, it's done, and it's likely the death knell for Photobucket.

This is a place to post your impressions and suggestions for alternatives. I'll update this post with options. Note that copyright restrictions (don't post /upload images you don't have the rights for) and illegal uploading (porn, malware etc.) restrictions apply.

Be wary that other services may have updates to their TOS in response.

Make sure that you read their TOS and that they allow hotlinking.

Note that some services will allow it, but will also remove your account access with little or no notice.

You can link to images you host on your own Website or blog. Or you might find one of these image hosting alternatives work for you.

As I have time, I'll test them on AW.

Image Hosting Alternatives

Imgur

Imgur.com
TOS.

Flickr
Flickr.com
Verizon bought Flickr when they bought Yahoo. I have no idea what will happen.
Guidelines

Google Photos

Google Photos

I have no idea on this one; I don't use it currently because of some of their TOS and privacy provisions.

I haven't yet tested DropBox or GoogleDrive post the Photobucket change.

========

A site I am on with heavy graphics links uses imgur. Some use dropbox and others with inferior results.
 

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========

A site I am on with heavy graphics links uses imgur. Some use dropbox and others with inferior results.

You might want to peruse the imgur TOS.
 

gimli

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So you can do this, go to google images and search for your image , with the word , freepik or any other stock photo website. Infact just use " My image stockphoto" . Then you will ofcourse get a search result filled with great image watermarked ready to be sold.
Do yourself a favour and grab one of those images and drag it into your search bar. Google will perform a new search based on the image visuals and name.... Many times people who buy stock photos dont rename them so they end up on ites where you can hotlink them of , ofcourse its not every image but many of them . It is somewhat of a dodgy affair. Also beware DCMA crop that image and rename it until google cant relate it to another.

AAANNND now that i read the rest of the thread i see its changed, a little bit of JavaScript can stop hot-linking also mst hosting providers now have the option available in their c panel as it can kill your bandwidth usage. Even easier you can use you ht acess file ( which is like the manual version of using the cpanel option and write a few rules : <<<https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/smarter-way-to-prevent-image-hotlinking-with-htaccess/>>>>> This is a very good article on explaining it .
 
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Enlightened

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I did a simple free image hosting and came up with this one. I tested it; works fine.

https://simimg.com/

TO EDIT YOUR IMAGES (Windows Users):

1. Download image (or create your own).
2. Right click image on computer. Select Open With, Paint.
3. Click Resize. Uncheck "Maintain aspect ratio." Click Pixels.

Note: For new users, I think, the max size is 175 (horizontal) by 240 (vertical) pixels.

4. Define the numbers you want in the top only horizontal and vertical fields. Click Okay.
5. Save to computer (rename it not to overwrite the original).
6. Upload it to the site above.

Note: Once uploaded, click on "Embed Codes." Copy the "Image URL." This is what you put into your Settings, Avatar, Custom URL.
 
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