Photobucket Mess

This is both an apology and a warning to everyone on this great SFG forum.

For several years I have been using a free account at Photobucket to host my photographs. Photobucket provided links to the individual hosted photos to allow them to be posted on this SFG forum and other forums (e.g., my flight simulator forum). 

I woke up this morning to find out that Photobucket have changed their Terms of Service (TOS) and no longer allow links or 3rd party hosting to photos in free accounts. All my photos hosted at Photobucket and linked to on this and other forums have been replaced with the "Please Update Your Account to Enable 3rd Party Hosting" image shown below. This happened with NO prior warning.

This means that the photo history of my SFG as shown in the threads "A First Time SFG in Canada", "Second Year SFG in Canada" and "Third Year SFG in Canada" is now gone!  In order, for me to get lining and 3rd party hosting restored to my Photobucket account I will have to pay them $400 per year for a subscription. I am not going to do that.

There are many people across the world who have been affected by Photobucket's TOS change. Online businesses have been affected and sales lost. Forums have been crippled. I heard of one site that had 20,000 linked images which no longer work unless the ransom is paid to Photobucket. 
 
I apologize to everyone on this forum for the mess this has created in all the SFG Forum threads where I have linked to images in my Photobucket account. 

Aww...that's no fair. Talk about bait and switch!

I use Shutterfly but I don't link it to this forum. Wonder how long it'll be before THEY want money for me to access my photos. I've never trusted the cloud stuff. Should have continued using my portable hard drive. Guess I should go back to it.

CapeCoddess wrote:Aww...that's no fair.    Talk about bait and switch!

I use Shutterfly but I don't link it to this forum.  Wonder how long it'll be before THEY want money for me to access my photos.  I've never trusted the cloud stuff.  Should have continued using my portable hard drive.  Guess I should go back to it.

I would not use another hosting or cloud system to store the only original versions of my photos. I always keep the originals on my own computer and back them up to portable disk drives. I only put copies on outside storage sites such as Photobucket. So I have all of my original photos that have been posted on the forum but it would take forever to edit all of my posts to either upload the photos or create new links.

TD, so you'll be able to post to the forum directly from you computer in the future, right? That's how I've always done it.

CapeCoddess wrote:TD, so you'll be able to post to the forum directly from you computer in the future, right?  That's how I've always done it.

Yes, I already do some of that. For example, all of the temperature graph images in the "Trolleydriver's Compost Thermometer" thread are uploaded directly to the forum. So they are not affected by Photobucket's decision to not allow linking to images on their hosting site. At this point I'm not sure what to do with my "... SFG in Canada" threads. What Photobucket has done is impacting tons of forums and business web sites across the Internet. I understand that they are a business and need to make money. However, to spring this on their users without warning and then request a ransom price of $399.99 USD per year to restore the linking service is beyond the pale.

$400??? Are they NUTS???

I don't trust cloud-based stuff anyway... It all stays right here on my computer, external hard drives, & sticks.

AtlantaMarie wrote:$400???  Are they NUTS???

I don't trust cloud-based stuff anyway...  It all stays right here on my computer, external hard drives, & sticks.

Or you can have the other deal which is $40 per month. 

AtlantaMarie wrote:$400??? Are they NUTS???

I don't trust cloud-based stuff anyway... It all stays right here on my computer, external hard drives, & sticks.

That is smart thinking, but the problem is sometimes you need a 'host' for sharing, posting, etc. Now there's one less option (least for me and probably countless others).
Photobucket is toast...

I'm so, so sorry for anyone who posted using Photobucket. A heart break after all of the trouble to post the photos. Talk about extortion! $399 ransom with no warning. I wonder how many individuals and businesses, especially the businesses, will pay it. I predict a lot will pay it one time, then jump ship.

I'm rather a Luddite that I don't even know what 3rd Party means! All of my photos are on the PC hard drive with Cloud backup. I lost 2 hard drives hence the Cloud backup at 99 cents a month.

Wow!  Unbelievable.  I use servimg, which i think is the default from this site.  But they are all photos on my iPad that then get uploaded there.  

I haven't been able to upload any photos since I got this new iPad in May....no idea why, just won't do it.  Wish I could just directly upload them from my iPad.  WHY????  Why do I have them hosted?  Why can't I just drop them in here like I can to FB, etc.?

Scorpio Rising wrote:Wow!  Unbelievable.  I use servimg, which i think is the default from this site.  But they are all photos on my iPad that then get uploaded there.  

I haven't been able to upload any photos since I got this new iPad in May....no idea why, just won't do it.  Wish I could just directly upload them from my iPad.  WHY????  Why do I have them hosted?  Why can't I just drop them in here like I can to FB, etc.?

Because basically Facebook (in a nutshell) is, in of itself an image host.

RoOsTeR wrote:

Scorpio Rising wrote:Wow!  Unbelievable.  I use servimg, which i think is the default from this site.  But they are all photos on my iPad that then get uploaded there.  

I haven't been able to upload any photos since I got this new iPad in May....no idea why, just won't do it.  Wish I could just directly upload them from my iPad.  WHY????  Why do I have them hosted?  Why can't I just drop them in here like I can to FB, etc.?

Because basically Facebook (in a nutshell) is, in of itself an image host.

Truth.  At least I can still post a link here to my pictures....

trolleydriver wrote:This is both an apology and a warning to everyone on this great SFG forum.

For several years I have been using a free account at Photobucket to host my photographs. Photobucket provided links to the individual hosted photos to allow them to be posted on this SFG forum and other forums (e.g., my flight simulator forum).

I was just about to sign up for this to be able to post some pics. What are the options now? Thank you for helping out.

Hi South Face!
You can post photos to this forum directly from you computer or device. You don't need a host.
Click reply and then click on the lower left grey box on the bar at the top of the reply box. That will get you started.
Try it. If you can't figure it out, ask again but tell us what you are posting from and hopefully someone experienced with that device can help you. There's a test thread somewhere this forum if you want to practice. If you type 'practice' in the search box at the left you'll find it.
Good luck!
CC

Click on Host an Image button

Click on +Select Files (green)


Select your photo or photos


Click on Send All (blue) takes a few seconds to complete.


Click on Insert All (symbol of 2 tiles)

I'm currently experimenting with cubeupload.com for restoring my blog.

Advantages:
Free.
Easy.

Disdvantages:
No folders to organize images.  I've got quite a few I need to upload and the only way to get to them will be lots and lots of scrolling.
Removed "-" from image names during upload (eg. Garden-Peppers.jpg becomes GardenPeppers.jpg).  Haven't tried an image with an underscore yet.


I may try another free service or two.  I'm willing to pay for a service, if the rates are reasonable.  I really want something designed for photo hosting (folders and simple browsing.  I also need to be sure that whatever service I select is accessible from inside of China.

Cubeupload also kills underscores.  No idea why.  I've emailed support about this and also asked about folders.

Just tried ImgBox.com

Easy to use, free, accessible from China.

Has folders.

Then it took the image name Mutant-Pizza-FengHuang.jpg and turned it into https://i.imgbox.com/Y4gPVkYq.jpg  

I've emailed in to ask if there's any way to improve this.

I use imgur from time to time. Not bad. Don't know about China compatibility.

It might work from time to time, but I've got several hundred images needed just to restore by blog before adding anything new.

Imagur's TOS includes this:  "Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network."

So that takes it out of the running.