I don't know if anyone is aware, the free image hosting site - PHOTOBUCKET - that many of us use to host images then linking images in our posts are no longer free. They have suddenly modified their terms of services to not allow linking images to third party web sites anymore.

Quote

Free account : Each individual Member gets one free account that provides 2 GB of free storage or space available for your original photo files, or videos under 10min. The free account does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting. If a free account Member exceeds their Content Limit, their account will be immediately suspended and they will need to become a “Paying Member” (defined below) in order to continue accessing their account. You can upgrade to a Plus account at any time.

They have made available several tiers of paid accounts and the one which allows third party linking is the Plus500 account which cost $399 a year. Yes that's 400 dollars.

Quote

Plus 500 Plan: 500 GB of Storage and unlimited bandwidth for $399.99 / Year. The Plus 500 Plan allows for unlimited image linking and unlimited 3rd party image hosting.

This has caught many people by surprise because all the images hosted on blogs, forums, Facebook, Instagram etc etc etc all suddenly went dark and were replaced with a "PLEASE UPDATE YOUR ACCOUNT TO ENABLE THIRD PARTY HOSTING" image. Moreover the new limit for free account is 2Gb and if you have already exceeded that Photobucket locks your account and you can't even see or download your own pictures until you pay to upgrade. There are many discussions all over the world on this topic.

If you continue to use PB, you cannot directly embed the images in posts. You have to just post a link to the image and the users would need to click on each link to see the image - which then takes you to PB and shows you numerous pop up ads and videos before you really see the real images. PB has degenerated into a spam site in recent years and many are migrating away from it.

I myself am looking at a good alternative for PB. I am looking into IMGUR right now. Anyone else with a good suggestion as a replacement for PB.

It's sad that they decided to block existing hosted images like that. I have no problems if they change their TOS and no longer allow hosting images from a certain date forward and still allow images already hosted to remain as they were. Now many forums worldwide with good information and exchanges are crippled by all the images suddenly being blocked. Many call it a ransom move and it's not entirely unfair.

thanks for the info, sum..
if it is not against forum rules, maybe members can give us info on free but easy to use alternative sites..
i for one have used photobucket but have been agrevated at their pop up and slowness to access my library.

I've never liked photobucket, too dang slow and it has gotten worse the last few years.

Here is my favorite photo hosting site and the one I use all of the time. Completely free, fast and easy to use. It will reduce or enlarge the photo for you as you upload it. After it uploads the screen changes and gives you several choices on links to the uploaded photo, I pick the 2nd link down the screen (called a "direct link" and paste that link into my posting here on plbg in between the img meta command brackets.

[postimage.io]


And there are other good photo hosting websites, no need to use photobucket unless you are really stubborn about learning to use something else. Maybe this site should update its instructions for posting a photo and part ways with photobucket. We see complaints all the time from novices that want to post a photo of their plumbing problem but struggle to use photobucket.



Edited 3 times.

New motto for photobucket:

"A picture is worth a thousand ads"

And since we're at it, have the plbg.com gurus thought about putting dates on threads AND pushing threads to the top with each new posting to each an existing thread? Cumbersome to find your old thread buried deep below then click on it just to see an update. Or maybe I need to tweak my settings???



Edited 1 times.

Packy. Yes I have been very frustrated with PB in recent years as well. Every time you go there an as slides from the left, one drops from the top, one comes up from the bottom, a video starts playing at the corner, then the entire screen fills with another as while your simple image is taking a lot longer to load.

By linking the pictures directly on other sites, there is no way for PB to profit from the hosting. Now they are forcing people to click to their site instead of embedding, everyone would "enjoy" being bombarded with multiple ads for each click. I am not against PB making money, just freezing access to accounts until one upgrades and blacking out all hosted pictures suddenly one day is completely unfair.

Look at PLBG still keeping a simple practical to use site ad free makes you appreciate what Vic and everyone does so much more, with the primary focus being helping everyone with plumbing problems and sharing information.

I use PB a lot and have been thinking of switching anyways so this just moved it along for me sooner. Even the show image instructions up top referenced Photobucket. I will play with a few alternatives and post what I know here later.



Edited 1 times.

I have tolerated using PB because I have thousands of images categorized into libraries and leaving it could cause the account to become inactive and the images link broken everywhere. Not only here but sites on carpentry, engineering, real estate investing, auto repairs even cooking LOL etc etc etc...

Now that photobucket did it involuntarily for me I am not going back.



Edited 1 times.

Quote


Author: 120volts (CA)
..... And since we're at it, have the plbg.com gurus thought about putting dates on threads AND pushing threads to the top with each new posting to each an existing thread? Cumbersome to find your old thread buried deep below then click on it just to see an update. Or maybe I need to tweak my settings???

I don't think there are settings to do that, unless I missed them when I looked.

I appreciate this website and the people/company that makes it available. There are improvements that many, incld me, would like to see, but here are some good answers to questions about why this or that is the way it is:

[www.plbg.com]



Edited 6 times.

Thank you Sum and all of you that have given your thoughts and input.

Please know that for a while now our forum has been and continues to be working on possibly (no promises) going with some software addition for you to be able to upload images to Plbg.com which would make using our site easier for all of you however our number one priority continues to be security of our forum and for both your safety and our forum and so to date we haven't found a solution that we totally 100% feel confident with.

I'm sure you've also noticed that although we could monetize (make moneys off of) advertisers popping up on your screens (which in almost all cases means that your visits are being tracked as well as other issues that sometimes are uncontrollable) a long ago we made the decision to keep our forum "clean" with no other advertisers (other than our one sponsor) as we simply want to make sure that our site is safe for you.

Also most of you have read about the latest massive world wide cyber attack as well as how even our national top "secure" websites such as the Pentagon and NASA have sometimes been hacked ..... and so us allowing images with potentially hidden "sleeping" or otherwise hacking tools in an image, etc with possible ransom ware and so on is something we have been trying to avoid.

Anyway ..... please know that we are aware of the negatives of us not allowing images uploaded onto our server and that we recognize that if we allow uploading to our site it would make it easier for all of you and be an asset for our forum. It is something we also want to have, moneys is not our issue, total security is, and hopefully soon or one day we will have a solution that we feel totally comfortable with.

Thank you all.

vic,

keep on truck'ng exactly as you are

if you allow ANY uploads you are no longer secure

john

==============================================

"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638

I tend to agree, the photos that I post by linking are easy to do and they load fast. But maybe change the photo instructions regarding photobucket, it reads as if plbg.com is recommending them and people have frustration when trying to do as it says, there are many photo hosting places that are easier and better, in my opinion.

So I have signed up for two new image hosting sites. One is IMGUR.COM. Here are my notes of a quick tour.

The user interface is fairly simple and straight forward. You can create individual albums, name them whatever you want, and rearrange the albums. Uploading images is easy, you can pick a file or you can drag them right into the album. There are also edit tools for you to add a piece of text or draw a few lines, like what I did below. The text "Very Old Pipes" and the black arrow were added using these tools. Although I prefer my own desktop image processing tools some may find this useful.





The downside is once your images are uploaded, to get the link to post on forums, you have to go to the individual images and drop down a menu "get shared link", from a pop up screen you "COPY" the BBCODE link. This seems to be a bit more tedious compared to Photobucket where you can set it up to show what kinds of link you want listed and copy it directly under each image.

Overall pretty easy to use but hunting for the link to copy may hinder some novice users.



Edited 2 times.

I also checked out postimage.io that stuckinlodi recommended.

Once you created an account, you can also create different albums, name them how you want, resize and rotate pictures. Basically everything is there.

What I like:

- very simple and barebone.
- you can even upload pictures without creating an account, just upload and get your link and be done with it. For those who don't want to bother with organizing images, sorting into albums etc...and perhaps want to update an image say a few days after you have posted them without changing the actual post, this may be simple enough to for occasional one off use.

What I don't like:
- there seems to be no way to just drag half a dozen images into an album. They must be chosen by navigating to a local directory.
- I don't see any image edit tool like put a piece of text or draw a line that some may find useful.
- getting a shared link also involves two clicks, first on the shared link icon, then select to copy the direct link, it seems you have to add the "IMG" tags to the link yourself unless I am missing something.

These are the same images hosted on postimage.io.

The positive things you listed are what I like about postimage.io. It is so quick to use. And its ability to easily reduce or enlarge a photo for you is a big plus. I don't do any of the album stuff, I only upload a photo to be part of a posting here. If I need to make a comment or draw a line on the photo I use an old photo editing program I've had for many years.

I didn't follow what you meant about having to do 2 clicks to copy the link. Take a look at the screenshot below and try this. After unloading the photo the screen will change to what is shown below, then left-click once on the icon I've circled in red and that copies the link, you'll get a little popup that says the link has been copied. That's all I do, then I come here and paste the link into my post.



As I mentioned earlier imgur looks fast and has a lot of features, so it would be a good choice if I ever need something more than what postimage.io provides.



Edited 2 times.

may be my workflow is a bit different.

I typically would do my image processing on my desktop, resize, rotate, annotations etc...so I don't need any edit tools on the hosting site. However this MAY change in the future, sometimes it's nice to be able to snap a picture, and host the picture with a few labels, and post a question, while I am out and about, from a mobile phone, and no access to the desktop image processing tools until the evening.

Once the images are done I want to upload them in one shot, this is where the drag and drop on IMGUR is easier. On postimage.io I have to pick a directory and sometimes that's ten level deep.

I looked at your image above, and it looks like if you upload one single images, you do have the links right there. If you try to upload multiple images in one shot - which is what I do 99% of the time, you end up with the new images and you need to click "SHARE" to pop up the various links. Once you copy the direct link you then need to put in the IMG tags around that link manually. IMGUR has the tags pre and postpended so that's slightly easier for those who fumbles with tags.

Sounds like your needs with all those photos is different from me as a casual user, so imgur is a better choice for you. The important thing for me is the ease and speed to post a single photo, without having to register and login with the site or doing a lot of back & forth. Like a lot of things with computers there is more than one way to do something and the best method often depends on the individual.

yes I would prefer to have an account where pics I upload can be managed.

I don't remember doing too many one off pics except posting a few memes as jokes.

For most of the internet postings I tend to post quite a few pictures especially on "how to" type threads. Having an account give you some flexibility to edit the content after that fact. For example if by mistake you got the pics for step 3 and 4 reversed, you can edit the post and change the links, but many sites disallow editing after 10 minutes so the only way to correct things would be to swap the pictures in the image host.

Either site would work, I am sure there are others out there as well.

WordPerfect, Lotus 123, MySpace, Photobucket.

Quote
Author: sum (FL)
I don't know if anyone is aware, the free image hosting site - PHOTOBUCKET - that many of us use to host images then linking images in our posts are no longer free. They have suddenly modified their terms of services to not allow linking images to third party web sites anymore.

Edited 2 times.

Sum,

FYI on PhotoBucket, I recently signed up for the lowest-cost basic paid subscription, I get 10GB of storage and lets me use the site ad-free. Used to be you could just click on the "link" box and it would say "copied"...that feature is gone.

BUT...I discovered if you right-click on the link, select "select all", the right-click again and select "copy", you can still link to your pics.

Like you, I have links to pics all over various forums (fora?) and a random check shows all still active. The pic below is linked to PB: