# Wow, RIP Photobucket!



## darkzero (Jun 30, 2017)

Just received an email from Photobucket stating some features of my account have been disabled. Apparently they changed TOS this month & they no long allow 3rd party hosting, meaning you can't embed your photos onto webpages, forums, blogs, etc using img tags or html. Well what else would you use an image host for, storage? Heck no, I don't store my photos primarily with anyone online.

Luckily Nelson has set up this forum to archive photo in case the image host goes dead so all the photos affected will still show up here. But not many forums do this & not all forums allow you to upload pics to their server to post in threads.

I've used PB for over 14 yrs, later they added advertisements which got annoying but I lived with it. Now they want $399/yr if you want 3rd party hosting, screw that!

So all my photos embeded in posts over all these years on various forums have gone dead. Well you can click on the pic to view the pic but is very annoying in my build threads that have numerous of photos.

What image hosts do you guys use that are good? I'll upload photos here directly but I need to find something for other places. Well it was a good run, all things eventually come to end.

Sorry for the rant & thanks for reading.


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## CluelessNewB (Jun 30, 2017)

$399 is nuts!  You can get a real web site with your own domain name for much less that.  I will warn you that many (maybe all)  of the hosting companies have 1st year teaser rates but even when they go to regular rates it's typically less that $200.  Ipower hosts my personnel web site, it's not the best deal out there but I have been too lazy to move it. 

Here is a PC Magazine review of a handful:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2424725,00.asp


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## SSage (Jun 30, 2017)

I've used SmugMug for many years. I have pics hosted on there back to 2006 or so. I saw an old post about my toy hauler and its still showing up. They are not cheap, but the quality is top notch, about $40 a year I think and I upload large heavy weight pics. Nice if you want to share higher end stuff without all the size limits and use restrictions of others. I was an advrider junkie who traveled all over for years and got started with them from the moto forum, same owner. I like the website and the ease of use, very easy to learn. Slick interface, very well thought out. I put my travel pics on there mostly, but I don't ride as much these days. Now its shots off my kayak or projects. I've looked at cheaper offerings but, the ease of use is nice with smugmug. The latest app works great on my droid turbo.


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## pdentrem (Jun 30, 2017)

I have my own site as well. Just not been putting much on it. About 10 g of storage on a friends corporate server. Site cost is 15 but the storage I can not say as it has been free to date.
Pierre


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## darkzero (Jun 30, 2017)

Yeah, they're crazy, I really wonder if anyone would actually pay the $399. If I had to pay I would just get my own domain as well. I'm trying to avoid paying but it seems like soon I might just have to.


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## woodchucker (Jun 30, 2017)

imgur, but this hobby machinist doesn't recognize the image links. Not sure why, I do have it working at my woodworking forums.


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## darkzero (Jun 30, 2017)

I've always stayed away from imgur but never used it myself for hosting pics. On other forums I frequent imgur has problems much like you mentioned, and sometimes when I try to view a pic on imgur with my phone they won't appear, only on my PC. I may give Flickr a shot.


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## brittf (Jun 30, 2017)

What is the difference between "image linking" and "3rd party image hosting?" Besides $200?


Britt


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## darkzero (Jun 30, 2017)

brittf said:


> What is the difference between "image linking" and "3rd party image hosting?" Besides $200?
> 
> 
> Britt



From what I understand, image linking is when you put up a link to your pic, ie, post the image url in a thread so that users can click on it to see your pic on PB's website. 3rd party image hosting is when you embed the picture on a webpage or a forum post, ie, using the img tags/bbcode to post your photo.

That's what doesn't make sense to me, if you can no longer do either without having to pay, what's the point of even having a free account with an image host. That's what people use them for & that all I ever used them for. I understand they need to make money to stay a afloat but what they are asking for is ransom!

To add, what they call 3rd party hosting is also known as hotlinking. Many forums do not allow it as you are technically stealing bandwith as the host is paying for it & someone is using it without permission.


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## woodchucker (Jun 30, 2017)

nothing, it's just the way imgur labels their images.
Some sites are ok with it, some are not.
Here's the offering. The basic one should work here, but I have failed.
Normally the direct link should work, as that's the pic address. Or the HTML encoded if you can insert the html code.
but hobby-machinist may cleanse the data.



Wouldn't you know, it works below... as the direct.. I tried many times to image link only to fail... well what do you know.


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## brittf (Jun 30, 2017)

darkzero

Thank you for the quick reply. That's what I was thinking as well. I like to include my photos inline with my text as I will caption them to explain what I am doing. Photobucket is all I've used and I paid the ($99/year I think) subscription fee to avoid the advertisements. I'm going to have to rethink what I'm doing as I do not think it is a $400/year value for my limited use.


Britt


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## darkzero (Jun 30, 2017)

Same, here, that's what I do too. I have many build threads on other forums where I have numerous photos posted with commentary for each one. It's also great having my photos easy to access & categorized. Like when I want to repost a pic that was from quite a while ago, it would take me a lot of time to find it in my computer as my photos are just in folders with dates.

So for places like here, now I have to resort to going to PB, DL the pic, & upload it here. PITA. I think i'm going to get a domain & server space. Way cheaper, no ads, & freedom to do what I want. Talking to my brother now about it.


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## woodchucker (Jun 30, 2017)

brittf said:


> darkzero
> 
> Thank you for the quick reply. That's what I was thinking as well. I like to include my photos inline with my text as I will caption them to explain what I am doing. Photobucket is all I've used and I paid the ($99/year I think) subscription fee to avoid the advertisements. I'm going to have to rethink what I'm doing as I do not think it is a $400/year value for my limited use.
> 
> ...


So again, my second image is a photo link. The image is in my album on imgur, and now hobby-machinist is now allowing linking to it.
So it is very visible as you can see it in all it's glory. Also you can resize the image you wish to appear.
So imgur is now compatible with us.


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## darkzero (Jun 30, 2017)

Nice, good to hear regarding imgur.

Well I just talked to my lil brother. He's going to allow me to use his paid domain & virtual server for hosting my pics.


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## cascao (Jul 2, 2017)

Open the embed code and find the picture addres.
Past it directly to the foruns as a picture.


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