Photobucket change of terms. Alternatives?

[TechNoir]

Hello folks, Photobucket seems to have changed their terms of service so I now have to pay them if I want my pictures that are hosted there to show up here.

I was wondering where people on here are hosting pictures as an alternative?

John

[exeric]

I moved to ImageShack, John. It's free for the first month, then you must pay a fee; however it is considerably more reasonable than Photobucket.

[T. Cotten]

Good grief Folks!

You can upload to this forum directly for free, and it won't disappear someday.

.....Cotten

[TechNoir]

Thanks for the suggestion eric, I am evaluating options at the moment and then I will have to fix all of the images previously posted once I have sorted it out.

Cotton, I had already thought of that but didn’t think I could hotlink from here to other site but I am happy to be corrected?

The reason being is that I have posted the same thread on more than one forum several times so I need something that can be hotlinked to more than one site.

John

[kunzog]

Reply to thread, go advanced, select manage attachments, add picture

[T. Cotten]

...
Cotton, I had already thought of that but didn’t think I could hotlink from here to other site but I am happy to be corrected?

The reason being is that I have posted the same thread on more than one forum several times so I need something that can be hotlinked to more than one site.

John

There's another site, John?

Really?
Its not much of one if it doesn't allow direct uploads too.

If you like all the extra passwords, hoops to jump through, and even paying to give your cookies away,... enjoy!

....Cotten

[TechNoir]

There's another site, John?

Really?

....Cotten

Actually Cotten I heard a rumour that there is actually more than one other web site on the internet if that’s even possible to believe.


John

[Chris Haynes]

Testing 1234 :-) OK, it works. But awfully small picture.

[frichie68]

2 clicks and she's life-size, perfect!

[TechNoir]

Hello Admin, I have decided on where to put my pictures going forward.

I now have the same question as painterdaie, Can I go back and start the long process of updating the photo's in my old threads?

John

[painterdale]

What did you decide on, John? I guess I could have posted my question here to keep the thoughts in one place.

Thanks!
Dale

[TechNoir]

What did you decide on, John? I guess I could have posted my question here to keep the thoughts in one place.

Thanks!
Dale

Well Dale, as I am sure you know there are lots of options.

One option would be to sign up to another photo hosting site, there are many of them. However the downside to that is that here is no guarantee that they wont start charging for hotlinking photos. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did and frankly I wouldn’t blame them. Hotlinking costs them money so when a site, like Photobucket, gets popular with bloggers to use as a place to put photos then I can see why they would need to charge. Some sites might be a better bet than others. Google photos for example is possibly less likely to charge in the near future. However I have had problems with hotlinking to Google photos in the past so I have ruled that out for now. Tinypic is owned by Photobucket so they will probably be charging in the near future too.

Another option is to buy your own webspace and host your own. In an ideal world this is the best option as you have full control of the images including copyright etc. The obvious downside is the cost.

A third option, the one I think I have decided on, is to sign up to a blog. I have decided on blogger. I am not intending on using it as a blog as I probably wouldn’t spend enough time maintaining it but just a photo repository. In reality the photos are on a Picassa web album but putting them into a blog post seems to be a way of being able to hotlink them.

I am not sure how good a solution this is but after a few hours of googling all of the available options this seems like a viable one that should last a while.

If this doesn’t work or in the future Google decide to start charging then I will be hosting my own on my own space.

John

[painterdale]

Thanks, John.
I suppose one of the main goals is finding something that would be more permanent. I don't mind paying for a service, but when all your posted photos can go away whenever they decide to change their terms or costs, I think it's time to find something that can be controlled a little better by the one posting the photo. I only post on this forum, so this is the only reason I use a hosting site. I just can't see paying a fee forever to have a few photos on one site, especially when that fee could be increased at any time apparently without notice. After all that, the photos could still disappear farther down the road if the account is closed or the site shuts down. I have all of my photos backed up. Also have Picassa. But as everyone that posts on here knows, it takes a bit of time to take the pics and go through the process to post them for everyone's benefit and enjoyment (hopefully!).

Dale

[Shaky Jake]

John,

Sorry I didn't see this earlier, my answer is probably too late, but I use SmugMug. I've been using them for years and I honestly don't remember how they compare price wise with the other services. I post on several forums, but the main two are this one and ADVRider, and SmugMug works well on both of those. It's easy to use. Before SmugMug I had my own website, but it took a lot of work to maintain that and it was a lot more technical, especially for an old boomer like me who isn't trained in website maintenance and doesn't do that kind of thing for a living. The cost of the website kept going up too, I had to pay my internet service provider for the "space," I had to pay Dotster for the domain, and there were always other fees that I didn't quite understand. Anyway, I like the Blogger idea. I'll be interested to see how that works out for you.

Kevin

.

[nuklhd]

did I dood it