Imgur cracking down on RP hosting

[Tumbleweed]

Feb 12, 2016 0:48:37 GMT -8 Brian said:

Feb 12, 2016 0:24:35 GMT -8 Tumbleweed said:

I'll have to keep this in mind. If I ever open my site for people to browse my backgrounds/graphics for their use, my photobucket bandwidth will be used up fast I would think. Maybe I should check that out before I upload anymore to Photobucket. Any recommendations for a domain with hosting?

I've been using DreamHost since 2013. No complaints here.

Thanks Brian, I'll check it out.

Feb 12, 2016 1:04:24 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

Tumbleweed , we get a lot of pageviews and I have hundreds and hundreds of images for all of them hosted for free on Photobucket ~ plus all of my smilies, etc. and as posted my free account is only 50% used and I never have bandwidth overages.

Our homepage alone got more than a millions views in just over a little more than 2 years without ever having a problem. 

I've used Photobucket since forever and never an issue but if I ever open my graphics site to ProBoards members (which are a lot of members) and then take the number of images one person could be flipping through in one pop could cause a bandwidth problem?  To give you a little idea, I currently have 9 custom pages (with at least twice as many as that to still upload) of just backgrounds and each page, on average, has about 280 images. So theoretically, just one person could flip through 280 images pretty fast looking for the perfect background for their site. That's why I've stalled opening it to ProBoard members for years now because I wasn't sure I wanted to bother with paying a hosting fee or running the site but lately I've been thinking it is stupid not to share.  I could do a test and open my site to 30 people just to see what happens before I upload anymore to Photobucket. I really am pretty stupid about how bandwidth really works but I like Brian's suggestion and I'm glad I wasn't using Imgur.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Tumbleweed , I understand.


But just to give you an idea, 280 images is nothing compared to what I have in my libraries, and even on their free version, I don't run out of bandwidth. And I have hundreds and hundreds of photos that I post on PB and elsewhere that get lots of views, as well. So I don't think you'll have a bandwidth problem. And even their paid versions aren't expensive.

But I also think a web host is good, as well.  


I feel bad for those who have to make the switch. For me, the task would be daunting.

[Kami]

Photobucket must have changed in recent years, ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥. Back when I used them for my sites I was constantly getting bandwidth issues because of the number of viewers I had per day, which is why I started hosting them on my own hosting package. And, also from experience, @khristian's experience with photobucket is similar to mine in that I've also had URLs replaced with unsavoury images (strangely enough, even though tinypic is notorious for this, I have never had this problem with them).

I don't know if I have any alternatives... I'm still using tinypic for quick uploads but all my theme stuff is hosted either on proboards or through my own hosting. Reddit seems to recommend zimg.se , but it seems to have a 32MB cap which may not work for forums with lots of images (though that would take some work and a tonne of themes imo).

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Hi, Kami ~


Photobucket's last update gave far more bandwidth and image storage for free than their previous versions.

In the earlier years of our forum, (2009 through to perhaps 2012), I did run out of bandwidth a few times and had to upgrade to a paid account.

But somewhere around two/three years ago (unsure), they made yet another upgrade. And with that upgrade came so much more storage and bandwidth that I've not had a problem since.

I'm positive, though, that like most companies, they do not have a perfect record.


TinyPic is actually their subsidiary, and like you, I've not had the problem of new images assigned to urls, but I know that happens, too.


My Photobucket, on the other hand, is like a trip down memory lane seeing all of those eBay items I sold all those years ago. I always say I'm going to delete them, yet somehow never do.

If I ever find my storage is getting near capacity, that will be the time I'll be housecleaning.  


Good luck with finding alternatives!

[Kami]

♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ - Yeah, I was hosting with photobucket (so tempted to abbreviate to 'pb' but that would be awkward!) circa 2005-2007. I moved to imageshack for a while but had loads of trouble with them, then started using tinypic then eventually my own host, then my host + proboards.

i still have my photobucket account tho, it's a little embarrassing to see some of the old layouts I made!! hahahaha.

[Skidjit]

Feb 12, 2016 6:20:29 GMT -8 @khristian said:

I stopped using PhotoBucket when they started replacing my oldest images with things my virgin eyes couldn't handle...

I had this happen once with tinypic. My members started sending me emails to let me know that I needed to get certain images off the site. They knew it was the image host that caused the issue, and not anything that was our doing. Thank goodness.

.....

I still have my photobucket but have not added any new images, using them in years. My old images from a decade ago, are still working.

If anyone would like to comment, I've been using tinypic on a regular basis for ages. Is there something I might need to know that makes this a bad decision? It's rare for any of my images to be changed out to something else. If it occurs, I quickly solve the issue right away. Anyway, is using them making my site load slower or something?

ps... I've never heard of imgur.

[Tumbleweed]

Feb 12, 2016 23:20:37 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

Tumbleweed , I understand.


But just to give you an idea, 280 images is nothing compared to what I have in my libraries, and even on their free version, I don't run out of bandwidth. And I have hundreds and hundreds of photos that I post on PB and elsewhere that get lots of views, as well. So I don't think you'll have a bandwidth problem. And even their paid versions aren't expensive.

But I also think a web host is good, as well.  


I feel bad for those who have to make the switch. For me, the task would be daunting.

Oh on photobucket I have thousands of images. But you do give me hope I may not need to worry about bandwidth but even if I do run out, as you said, it isn't that expensive for either a paid photobucket or a domain. I do think I might go the route of a domain with storage so I have my images split up so if Photobucket ever follows the way of Imgur I at least don't have to re-upload all my images.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Kami , having come to know you and your talents, I believe your Photobucket trip down memory lane with your old layouts, was still ahead of its time for the period they were done. I'm sure you impressed many, even back then.


Skidjit , TinyPic has on occasion switched out pics on a URL for me. I still use it for my "throwaway" images that are only posted once and if they were "misplaced" on a thread it wouldn't be a big deal. But I could NEVER trust them with images that make up my forum's themes.


Tumbleweed , I don't think Photobucket will go the way of Imgur because their site is built on both businesses, forums, etc. using them. Hence the reason they do have a bandwidth indicator. Last week was the FIRST time they had such an extended period of down time, more than 12 hours. I contacted them via email explaining my forum's dilemma. I received a personal reply as you would here on Support.And they kept everyone updated via their Twitter feed. And the really nice thing? They sent a coupon after the site was restored (with no data loss) for 70% off a metal canvas. Their canvas work is superb and I'm taking them up on that ~ since I love photography! And after that, I got another reply asking if my forum was ok. So my personal experience with them as been wonderful ~ and I don't pay for it. 

[Mixed]

I'm really leaning towards going for Photobucket mostly because I really don't know about the other alternatives (and there are a couple of good reviews on them.

However, I do have one question/idea that may be stupid. What about DeviantArt? I already have many of my images there because that's where I like to keep everything together. I just reread their TOS and found nothing about using as an image host/delivery system. Then again, I could be blind or misunderstanding a phrase. I'm not jumping into it right away, of course. I'm just wondering if it's even feasible. Thoughts?

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Hi, Mixed  ~   


I consider DeviantArt as an online art gallery where you share your creations. They aren't really a photo hosting site which is probably why nothing is mentioned in their TOS about bandwidth usage/limits.

[Mixed]

Feb 13, 2016 13:59:01 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

Hi, Mixed  ~   


I consider DeviantArt as an online art gallery where you share your creations. They aren't really a photo hosting site which is probably why nothing is mentioned in their TOS about bandwidth usage/limits.

True. And it will likely remain as a gallery. Hence why my personal works are there and not those avatars and such where I use stock photos. It was just a random thought as my mind wandered around. Thanks!

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Nothing wrong with thinking out loud, Mixed . The nice thing about Photobucket is you can have as many accounts as you want. So if you are starting to get near storage or bandwidth capacity, you can simply open another free one.

But that's not happened to me yet ~ and I mix in my photography photos with my ProBoards' stuff. 

[Brian]

My only gripe with Photobucket is that the direct links to their images have inconsistent behavior under certain circumstances. Sometimes you get taken to the image itself and other times you're taken to its gallery page, even with the ~original suffix after the URL. I think it's dependent on whether you've attempted to visit the URL directly or not but I have yet to determine exactly what action causes it.

At least all of this has motivated me to finally get ShareX working the way I want it to. Now I can just right-click images on my PC to upload them to my domain and I automatically get their URLs copied to my clipboard. And I managed to mirror a domain name that's shorter than Imgur's URL structure, so less characters in my URLs until the unlikely event of me managing to achieve all 1,679,616 possible combinations in my random 4 character alphanumeric file names.

Now to see just how unlimited my "unlimited" bandwidth is.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

I've never encountered that issue, Brian .

I only use the direct link for all of the smilies, images, backgrounds, avatars on our board. Of course, I have their privacy scrambler off ~ as adding those will trigger that type of behavior ~ since you're adding a privacy protector. 


See my post here. Allowing them to add those, will bolox up things ~ and as you see they don't recommend using it for hosted images for another site. 


Since 2009, our board has run smoothly with all images hosted on Photobucket.

[Mixed]

♥ ℒʊ√ ♥, about that scrambler, is it possible to turn it off for some but not others?