OoPEZoO Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 Sooooo....if you haven't noticed, photobucket has changed their policy on free 3rd party picture hosting. The only way around it seems to be a monthly subscription fee. Not a chance.....especially from photobucket as they have already broken every single link to every pic I have post online in the last ~10 years. Thats frustrating to say the least, as most of the pics were posted in an attempt to diagnose problems or document a procedure. I understand if they want to start a subscription service from here on out, but to break the links to everything previously posted is just wrong. I will be pulling everything from my account there and never using their services for anything again. So who has a good recommendation for a replacement? The only thing I ever hosted was for message board usage between the varies boards I frequent. Free is good, but would consider a subscription if its worth the price of admission. Link to comment
mnTwin Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 Keith, Smugmug is subscription, but is run by the family that owns ADVrider. https://www.smugmug.com/plans Flickr (what I use) is free and is owned by Yahoo. A little uncertainty in the long term because of the change of ownership by Verizon. Google is free, but is a pain to use. Brian Link to comment
greiffster Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 Google is free, but is a pain to use. Yup, can't recommend Google. It was good when it was still Picasa. They have made it difficult (on purpose I think) to use it as a hosting site. Doable, as I still suffer through because I've got a ton a photos from the former. Link to comment
Dennis Andress Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 SmugMug. Yeah they want money, but they've never broken a link or done anything else stupid. Link to comment
OoPEZoO Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 Thats the really frustrating part....as I have tons of photos loaded in to photobucket. It was always pretty easy to use, even on the go using a mobile device. None of what I have on there are hi res pics. Its not like I'm going to lose access to priceless family pics or anything. They are all compressed, cropped, dumbed down versions used only for message board posting. I could delete them all today and it really wouldn't effect anything other than I need to find another service (on principle), and that it breaks the links to every picture I've ever posted online. What a crock. Link to comment
OoPEZoO Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 SmugMug. Yeah they want money, but they've never broken a link or done anything else stupid. I'm sure they are enjoying all of the new business due to how bad photobucket PO'd their users. Link to comment
Glenn Reed Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 I'm sure they are enjoying all of the new business due to how bad photobucket PO'd their users. That's my takeaway as well. Right now, I can't get enough server resources to even delete all my pictures there on Photobucket. I'm sure they're swamped with people doing exactly the same thing... Link to comment
Lone_RT_rider Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 (edited) SmugMug. Yeah they want money, but they've never broken a link or done anything else stupid. Ditto... my pics from 2003 Torrey still link and work perfectly. Nuff said. Edited July 19, 2017 by Lone_RT_rider Link to comment
ArmyGuy Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 I use flickr. It's free and works well for my purposes. Link to comment
OoPEZoO Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 How well do flickr and Smugmug work on mobile devices? Do they have their own apps and easy copy/paste functions for linking to the pics? Link to comment
Lone_RT_rider Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 (edited) How well do flickr and Smugmug work on mobile devices? Do they have their own apps and easy copy/paste functions for linking to the pics? They have an app and I have used it a couple of times, but I am far from a power user. I have been pretty happy with the limited experiences I have had. Shawn Edited July 19, 2017 by Lone_RT_rider Link to comment
szurszewski Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 How well do flickr and Smugmug work on mobile devices? Do they have their own apps and easy copy/paste functions for linking to the pics? No experience with smugmug, but my I do use Flickr to host pics for THIS forum (really, that's it!) and I have not been able to figure out how to get a usable link via there mobile app. From the normal browser interface it's no problem. Link to comment
realshelby Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 I think I might switch to SmugMug. Seems it might be set up to be there a while. I don't mind $3.99 per month, I was paying $2.99 per month for Photobucket. How can Photobucket justify $39.99 per month when competitors are 1/10 that amount? Link to comment
KTM Doug Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 (edited) I'm in the same boat. My annual fee is coming up and I think it said I was grandfathered til the end of 2018. I assume that means my pics will then disappear from this site and ADV. Bummer. I did not use Smugmug when I first starting linking pics as I was confused by their setup and in picking what my site would look like. I didn't care. All I wanted was a spot to put pics in a simple file. Guess I will have to now go look and see if I am still confused, or at least anymore than I normally am. Ok, I just started a Smugmug trial 14 day account. Uploaded one pic. Hit the sharing button and thought I copied a link. Went here and when I try to paste link, nothing there saved. I knew it wouldn't be easy. Well, maybe I found out what was wrong. I needed to save it in BBCode, whatever the heck that is. Who knew? Imogene 1995 Edited July 20, 2017 by KTM Doug Link to comment
Selden Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 Google is free, but is a pain to use. Yup, can't recommend Google. It was good when it was still Picasa. They have made it difficult (on purpose I think) to use it as a hosting site. Doable, as I still suffer through because I've got a ton a photos from the former. Amen to that. I'm still upset with Google for killing Picasa, and expecting people to use Google Photos, which is next to useless for organizing and less than useless for linking — Google Photos image links won't even work for Google's own product forums. Link to comment
mnTwin Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 Ok, I just started a Smugmug trial 14 day account. Uploaded one pic. Hit the sharing button and thought I copied a link. Went here and when I try to paste link, nothing there saved. I knew it wouldn't be easy. Well, maybe I found out what was wrong. I needed to save it in BBCode, whatever the heck that is. Who knew? BBCode (bulletin board code) is just the language used by this forum software. Link to comment
MikeRC Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 What a PITA. I only use my Photobucket account when I am on the road because of the convenience of uploading pictures via the Android app. Now I have a bunch of broken links to my photos in a few threads. Most of my photos are "hosted" on my domain, but ftp programs sometimes don't play nice with wifi networks in remote locations. Is there a specific moderator to email to update the links? Mike Cassidy Link to comment
OoPEZoO Posted July 20, 2017 Author Share Posted July 20, 2017 Yup.....what a PITA. Its one thing to switch to a subscription model, its a whole different level of asshattery that they broke everyones existing links with zero warning and replaced it with a $400/yr option as the only way to keep the links alive. I can't tell you how many things I've seen in the last 2 weeks where I researched something online only to find dead picture links due to this. It is effecting a LOT, especially message forums like this that relied on 3rd party pic hosting for writing tutorials and how to's. Link to comment
Shiny Side Up Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 Maybe enough folks will get P.O.'d and send P-Bucket into bankruptcy... No users = No advertisers. I can only hope. Link to comment
Dave McReynolds Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 An Airstream site I belong to allows posting of photos directly from your own computer, and an archery site I belong to is changing over to that after the Photobucket disaster. I'm not a techie, but that seems a preferable way to do things. As an aside, it seems totally predictable to me that Photobucket would become about as popular as thalidomide after doing this, and it seems incredible to me that nobody over there could see it coming. Incredible to the point that I wonder if there could be some hidden agenda? Link to comment
szurszewski Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 ADV allows direct attachment of files to posts, though they do limit it to four per post. Of course that means they need to store those files somewhere which costs money, but it makes posting there SO much easier - especially doing ride reports on the road. Link to comment
Dave McReynolds Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 ADV allows direct attachment of files to posts, though they do limit it to four per post. Of course that means they need to store those files somewhere which costs money, but it makes posting there SO much easier - especially doing ride reports on the road. A photo I attached directly from my iPad to this page on the Airstream Forum, "Lupe and friend" indicates that it is taking up 321 bytes. I think they must have a way of attaching photos without moving the whole file to their website. Link to comment
szurszewski Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 ADV allows direct attachment of files to posts, though they do limit it to four per post. Of course that means they need to store those files somewhere which costs money, but it makes posting there SO much easier - especially doing ride reports on the road. A photo I attached directly from my iPad to this page on the Airstream Forum, "Lupe and friend" indicates that it is taking up 321 bytes. I think they must have a way of attaching photos without moving the whole file to their website. If you look at the source code/html for the page, that image is living on their server/space. It's 321kb (kilobytes - not just bytes) which is a reasonable file size for an image of that size and web quality. I'd imagine they reduce the file size - if it's large - automatically to save space; it looks like most/all the images in that thread appear around the same dimension and file size. I had forgotten, but was recently reminded, that ADV only allows logged in members to view full size pics - "guests" just get to see the thumbnails of hosted images. Link to comment
realshelby Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 This is going to be a big problem for forums. This one included. This one is privately owned. But many if not most popular forums are now commercial. This, in my mind, puts them in the position of having to start hosting pictures. Which is probably the way it should be for a commercial site. I didn't know ADV allowed pictures uploaded. But I don't do much over there anyway. The couple sites I used in the past that did allow that were VERY difficult to use. Link to comment
longjohn Posted July 28, 2017 Share Posted July 28, 2017 PBase in another option. Yes it is pay to use but my brother and I have been very happy with it for years. Flickr is used by MANY of the forum users at Photography on the Net, (and a good portion of them are or could be pros) but I don't know if it's a pay or free site. If I didn't already have hundreds of pics already at PBase I would use them. www.pbase.com/xygoat Click on the John folders to see my pics. Link to comment
szurszewski Posted July 28, 2017 Share Posted July 28, 2017 This is going to be a big problem for forums. This one included. This one is privately owned. But many if not most popular forums are now commercial. This, in my mind, puts them in the position of having to start hosting pictures. Which is probably the way it should be for a commercial site. I didn't know ADV allowed pictures uploaded. But I don't do much over there anyway. The couple sites I used in the past that did allow that were VERY difficult to use. ADV is super simple - drag and drop on your desktop or tap add photo on your phone and it goes right to your camera roll for selection. Link to comment
DJ_Fission Posted July 28, 2017 Share Posted July 28, 2017 (edited) I use imgur.com for my free image hosting now, since leaving Flickr due to all the problems Yahoo has had with security. Edited July 28, 2017 by DJ_Fission Link to comment
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