PSA Photobucket Fiasco

[Somjuan]

To anyone who hasn't noticed what's up with old photos. Photobucket decided to charge users $400 annually to host photos offsite on sites such as this. Dead/ransomed links are abound for third party hosting, and the direct website is actual cancer for mobile viewing. As a result, most of the faqs are down for viewing.

Imgur is a decent alternative

[amarino]

As a workaround I found that in Chrome you can Right-Click and "Open image in new tab" to still see the picture that should be there.

[jaredmac11]

Definitely encourage imgur but what sucks is so many photos from threads are dying. Makes it tough to follow old diy threads.

Poor form by Photobucket by the way...

[hakhawk]

imgur blocks hotlinking on bfc: https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...-who-use-Imgur

im using flickr now after dropbox killed their public folders

[autox320]

I've used plenty of so called "free" hosting only to get boned in the end. They all eventually switch for profit. Right now good luck so far with just using my own google photo account where no limit on anything you do. Well cause google wants to know and archive everything about everyone. Internet of things and all that are monitored.


imageshack
flikr
webshots
photobucket

storing data eventually reaches a limit without backing. That "cloud" is still severs somewhere .

[bikedad]

This is the current photo hosting site I'm using. I've been using it for about 2 years now and not had any issues so far.

https://postimages.org/

Technically I don't store my images there. Just items I post for a forum that doesn't have local image hosting resources. I upload copies of the images to the hosting site.
If this particular image hosting site decides to take a dump then I won't lose anything and will move on to another.

[Wardenclyffe]

I've used plenty of so called "free" hosting only to get boned in the end. They all eventually switch for profit. Right now good luck so far with just using my own google photo account where no limit on anything you do. Well cause google wants to know and archive everything about everyone. Internet of things and all that are monitored.


imageshack
flikr
webshots
photobucket

storing data eventually reaches a limit without backing. That "cloud" is still severs somewhere .

A relatively small clarification - less than 2% of Internet of Things device data is ever examined, much less analyzed and far, far less is ever archived (current estimates put us at 40 zettabytes of data in three years, roughly equivalent to 6,080 MILLION YEARS of HD video). But yeah, Google is totally checking you out. Given what they give me in return and how much I can currently opt out of, I'm okay with this balance, for now at least.

[autox320]

A relatively small clarification - less than 2% of Internet of Things device data is ever examined, much less analyzed and far, far less is ever archived (current estimates put us at 40 zettabytes of data in three years, roughly equivalent to 6,080 MILLION YEARS of HD video). But yeah, Google is totally checking you out. Given what they give me in return and how much I can currently opt out of, I'm okay with this balance, for now at least.

In God we trust, in everyone else we monitor

[lasvegascop]

This is the current photo hosting site I'm using. I've been using it for about 2 years now and not had any issues so far.

https://postimages.org/

Technically I don't store my images there. Just items I post for a forum that doesn't have local image hosting resources. I upload copies of the images to the hosting site.
If this particular image hosting site decides to take a dump then I won't lose anything and will move on to another.

I've been using photobucket since 2011 and this is what they did to my thread.....asswipes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jrcook320]

yeah... that's a tough blow to the forums. So many people used photobucket, myself included. So much on the forums and in the FAQ is lost without it. Not sure how to fix it yet, uploading everything to another host and rewriting things is a massive undertaking.

[dumbclub]

All these years of linking thousands of good photos to our forum by hundreds of dedicated members has gone up in flames, at least for those of us who used Photobucket. It's a huge loss, especially to the illustration and DIY threads.

I can understand Photobucket's need for revenue from third party hosting to offset the cost of running their business, BUT this astronomical $400 a year is absolutely shameful and puts it completely out of reach for the overwhelming number of their users. Like everybody else in the universe, I can't wait to find an alternative and I'll never use them again.

[okieflats]

I had been using flikr, but the best would probably be Google Photos. They'd be the least likely to start charging. It can be used for "hot linking" or third-party image hosting, apparently. Below is my test to make sure it works, and I assume you can all see that picture?

https://photos.google.com/

[dumbclub]

Yep.
Thanks for the suggestions of other hosting sites.

EDIT:
Hold it, there is something a little odd going on with your photo link. When I come to this page from the e21 Forum home page, it's there and looks fine. If I hit my page refresh button, the photo is replaced by a grey circle with a minus sign.

SECOND EDIT:
And now, a few hours later, it doesn't work at all.

[osburn383]

Yeah i had issues linking google photos on my thread as sometimes they would show and then disappear at random.
I upload to imgur at the moment.

[jaredmac11]

Your image is broken, Okie.

[okieflats]

Google photos does not work then for third-party hosting. It seems to work fine for me even on various computers, at home, work, etc. But I am also using Chrome as the browser so that's probably why.

I wanted to test it to see if everyone could view it. Apparently not.

[autox320]

Google photos does not work then for third-party hosting. It seems to work fine for me even on various computers, at home, work, etc. But I am also using Chrome as the browser so that's probably why.

I wanted to test it to see if everyone could view it. Apparently not.

Here's how I post in my thread if it helps. I use google photos. Always click into an album even if just uploaded photos always view them in the album. Right click on the image and "copy image address" If no option to do so then click the image and let it load on it's own page then right click on it. Then click the insert image icon on your bimmerforums reply. When the box pops up click the top right tab that says from URL. Then paste the link and make sure to UN-CHECK the box for "Retrieve remote file and reference locally" Hit ok and it will paste a huge long string into your post. Preview it if you want but it should work.

[okieflats]

I think the main reason to recommend Google Photos is they are the LEAST likely to start charging for image hosting. Google mainly wants to track your activity in order to sell advertising that targets you.

[sonomaGTLN2]

This is very sad...may very well be a deathblow to vBB type forums since all of those old threads are virtually useless without pictures.

[jaredmac11]

Whats crazy is even Ebay listings were hotlinked. I understand Photobucket's motives but it really did screw over forums.

[320iAman]

I have been taking pictures with my camera saving to my notebook and then posting images thru the thread tools, yes that's a cheap shot cutting off links like that, I would think they all will going that way as there volume builds. FAQ's pictures are a valuable learning tool to diy's and an sharing for the posters.

Have to include pictures thru the thread tools now and put pictures back in thru thread tools deleting 3rd party hosting of pictures ect. Transfer pictures back to laptop or desktop or other from 3rd party hosting, then repost thru thread tools to the threads and delete the old pictures not being hosted, bimmerforums will be hosting the pictures in and with the thread.....problem solved.

Your all Welcome

Randy

[bassboy3313]

This is how our local forum is run. Photos are hosted directly through the forum, no third party bullshit needed. This has also been the reason why I gave up on my thread here honestly.

[320iAman]

Indeed, many forums now have there pictures down.

Randy

[BastardE38]

I have been and still use Flickr without issue. i dumped Photobucket about 10 years ago when they changed their format to make it harder to link photos on mobile

[amarino]

I found this plugin that works in Chrome to get around the block. I just tested it and it works great.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...fegnfnflicjjgj