Not sure if this is a Tecchie question or not but...

[kimmar067]

...I just sent a link for one of my threads to another DIS'er to show her the ongoing work being done on my house. Anyhoo, when we used the link, all the photos were gone, with a box in their place. So, I went to the host/website [photobucket] to see what the matter was about [the box said I needed to update]. It said that I could no longer 3rd party host unless I pay a monthly (or annual) FEE! WTH? I've been uploading my photos onto photobucket for almost 12 years now - is this the norm? What gets me is that I only found out by accident; they never even bothered to send me any kind of notification that this was coming down the pike.

Has this happened to anyone else? Any ideas of where I can store my photos. The whole purpose of uploading my photos in the first place was so that I could post them on the DIS....

 

[kdonnel]

They announced it about a month before the June 30th deadline. It is common for tech companies to offer a product for free, get people hooked, and then start charging for it. There are alternatives photo hosting sites that still allow 3rd party linking for free but I would expect most to follow photobucket's lead.

 

[kimmar067]

....I get that they want to make money for their services, but I'm not a 'newbie' to them....I only know of snapfish. Are you familiar with any alternative hosting sites?

 

[tiggrbaby]

Never heard from them either. What a bother!

 

[kdonnel]

....I get that they want to make money for their services, but I'm not a 'newbie' to them....I only know of snapfish. Are you familiar with any alternative hosting sites?

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/07/02/photobucket-alternatives-for-third-party/

 

[Albort]

i typically use imgur for forum sharing and such, but i dont think that would suit your purpose.

i just checked out google drive, it seems like you can share images too, but im not sure how extent you want it to be.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

....I get that they want to make money for their services, but I'm not a 'newbie' to them....I only know of snapfish. Are you familiar with any alternative hosting sites?

I've used tinypic.com for photos in the past. But, now that the "new" format here allows drag & drop, I just use that for posting here.

 

[sailorstitch]

...I just sent a link for one of my threads to another DIS'er to show her the ongoing work being done on my house. Anyhoo, when we used the link, all the photos were gone, with a box in their place. So, I went to the host/website [photobucket] to see what the matter was about [the box said I needed to update]. It said that I could no longer 3rd party host unless I pay a monthly (or annual) FEE! WTH? I've been uploading my photos onto photobucket for almost 12 years now - is this the norm? What gets me is that I only found out by accident; they never even bothered to send me any kind of notification that this was coming down the pike.

Has this happened to anyone else? Any ideas of where I can store my photos. The whole purpose of uploading my photos in the first place was so that I could post them on the DIS....

You don't want to pay Photobucket's ransom demand of $400 per year? I don't either. I've also been using PB for 12 years. I've switched to Flickr. Now I have 12 years worth of broken links to fix. I haven't gotten to my DIS siggy yet....

sailorstitch

 

[Imzadi]

I didn't get any notification about the change either. I've been a Photobucket member for about as long.

I've used tinypic.com for photos in the past.

Tinypic.com is owned by Photobucket, so that will probably go down the tube soon too.

I'm leery of Imgur. They have a lot of rules in their terms of service. And with so many people using them, especially now that people will be jumping ship from Photobucket, I have to wonder how long it will be before they get the financial strain of too many members using them as a 3rd party site host too?

Flickr has a very specific rule to NOT link directly but post their Backlink URL for pics. One CAN set their account to private, so in case someone accidentally clicks on a photo, they don't see your whole account, it's just the one photo back at Flickr. But, Flickr was owned by Yahoo for a while and services went DOWN because of that. Verizon recently bought Yahoo, so who knows what they will do with Flickr. They could decide in a year that they too want to charge a fee like Photobucket only less. And then we will be forced to move all our photos AGAIN.

I like the idea of uploading my photos at Google Photos. We know they aren't going out of business any time soon. So we don't have to worry about moving our photos again. The current limit of photos/data is 15 GB. BUT, right now, it's a current 5 step process to upload and get a photo link to post. There is also no grabbing a link to a photo posted online elsewhere and uploading it to Google Photos. One must save it to one's computer first, then upload it to Google Photos, then create a Public Google Photos album & post it in that album. Then right mouse click to get the link location to post.

Another alternative that may work is creating a blog at Blogger.com. That is owned by Google. So again, they aren't going anywhere. Set the blog to private. Upload & post pics onto a blog post. One can set up different blog posts as different "folders" for different types of photos. Publish the post. (Don't worry it's private.) Then right mouse click on the photo on the published page and get the photo location to post.


All this is a reminder to back up and move all my photos I have pinned at Pinterest. They may suddenly decide to want a paid membership too to get access to all my pinned photos and the links & notes I made for each pin.

 

[dgthree]

Another alternative that may work is creating a blog at Blogger.com. That is owned by Google. So again, they aren't going anywhere. Set the blog to private. Upload & post pics onto a blog post. One can set up different blog posts as different "folders" for different types of photos. Publish the post. (Don't worry it's private.) Then right mouse click on the photo on the published page and get the photo location to post.

I like this idea!

 

[sam_gordon]

I like the idea of uploading my photos at Google Photos. We know they aren't going out of business any time soon. So we don't have to worry about moving our photos again. The current limit of photos/data is 15 GB. BUT, right now, it's a current 5 step process to upload and get a photo link to post. There is also no grabbing a link to a photo posted online elsewhere and uploading it to Google Photos. One must save it to one's computer first, then upload it to Google Photos, then create a Public Google Photos album & post it in that album. Then right mouse click to get the link location to post.

I've been using Google photos for years. I grabbed a picture of the cake my daughter made me for my birthday.

Once I find the picture as a thumbnail, I click on it to bring it full, right click, 'copy image address', go back to DIS, click the insert photo icon, paste the address, click OK.

I don't understand the bolded. I went to CNN, found a photo I wonted to post here, right clicked on it, copy image address, and then did the photo icon thing on the DIS. No downloading needed.

 

[kimmar067]

You don't want to pay Photobucket's ransom demand of $400 per year? I don't either. I've also been using PB for 12 years. I've switched to Flickr. Now I have 12 years worth of broken links to fix. I haven't gotten to my DIS siggy yet....

sailorstitch

....as you can see, same here.....I'm still so angry, I could just SPIT!

 

[kimmar067]

I like the idea of uploading my photos at Google Photos. We know they aren't going out of business any time soon. So we don't have to worry about moving our photos again. The current limit of photos/data is 15 GB. BUT, right now, it's a current 5 step process to upload and get a photo link to post. There is also no grabbing a link to a photo posted online elsewhere and uploading it to Google Photos. One must save it to one's computer first, then upload it to Google Photos, then create a Public Google Photos album & post it in that album. Then right mouse click to get the link location to post.

Another alternative that may work is creating a blog at Blogger.com. That is owned by Google. So again, they aren't going anywhere. Set the blog to private. Upload & post pics onto a blog post. One can set up different blog posts as different "folders" for different types of photos. Publish the post. (Don't worry it's private.) Then right mouse click on the photo on the published page and get the photo location to post.....

.....um......HUH???

 

[kimmar067]

I've used tinypic.com for photos in the past. But, now that the "new" format here allows drag & drop, I just use that for posting here.

....where do you drag and drop from? Files from your computer? If so, I'd just upload them onto a stick or a zipdrive. I think that'll be faster that way...

 

[Imzadi]

Once I find the picture as a thumbnail, I click on it to bring it full, right click, 'copy image address', go back to DIS, click the insert photo icon, paste the address, click OK.

Do your photos stay up long term? There was one message board discussion that talked about this and they noticed a member's photos from over a year ago that he posted from Google Photos no longer appeared on the forum page. They couldn't figure out why some photos stayed posted and some didn't. They thought maybe it had to do with putting the photos in one's own "Public" folder.

The discussion is below. On page 2 is where they noticed old photos missing:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/embedding-pics-from-google-photos

I have a Cookies from Cake Mix thread on the DIS Cooking Board. I posted & archived many cookie recipes with accompanying photos - all hosted on Photobucket. Now I have to replace all those photos. I don't want to have to do it a third time later.

I don't understand the bolded. I went to CNN, found a photo I wonted to post here, right clicked on it, copy image address, and then did the photo icon thing on the DIS. No downloading needed.

I don't mean hotlinking. I meant adding the photo directly to one's Google Photos account via a the photo's URL. It's a feature on Photobucket. One can directly copy/upload a photo found online straight to one's Photobucket account. Then post the copy from one's own account, in case the original site later removed the photo. Then one would have control over the copy of the photo staying up since it was posted from one's own account.

As far as I can tell, one would have to save the photo to one's computer first then upload it to Google Photos.

 

[kimmar067]

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/07/02/photobucket-alternatives-for-third-party/

....thanks for that link....it was really informative!

 

[kimmar067]

....I have a Cookies from Cake Mix thread on the DIS Cooking Board. I posted & archived many cookie recipes with accompanying photos - all hosted on Photobucket. Now I have to replace all those photos. I don't want to have to do it a third time later.

....THAT'S gotta be really annoying!

I don't mean hotlinking. I meant adding the photo directly to one's Google Photos account via a the photo's URL. It's a feature on Photobucket. One can directly copy/upload a photo found online straight to one's Photobucket account. Then post the copy from one's own account, in case the original poster later removed the photo. Then one would have control over the copy of the photo staying up since it was posted from one's own account.

As far as I can tell, one would have to save the photo to one's computer first then upload it to Google Photos.

....I'm beginning to think that it might be easier to let Photobucket hold my pix hostage and then just pay the ransom....

 

[sam_gordon]

Do your photos stay up long term? There was one message board discussion that talked about this and they noticed a member's photos from over a year ago that he posted from Google Photos no longer appeared on the forum page. They couldn't figure out why some photos stayed posted and some didn't. They thought maybe it had to do with putting the photos in one's own "Public" folder.

The discussion is below. On page 2 is where they noticed old photos missing:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/embedding-pics-from-google-photos

I have photos going back to 2006 in my Google Photos account. I don't know why I wouldn't be able to link them. In my signature is my review of DW's and my Oasis of the Seas cruise from 2013. Pictures still show up there (all hosted on Google)

I don't mean hotlinking. I meant adding the photo directly to one's Google Photos account via a the photo's URL. It's a feature on Photobucket. One can directly copy/upload a photo found online straight to one's Photobucket account. Then post the copy from one's own account, in case the original site later removed the photo. Then one would have control over the copy of the photo staying up since it was posted from one's own account.

As far as I can tell, one would have to save the photo to one's computer first then upload it to Google Photos.

I've never tried doing that, but upon looking, you're probably correct.

 

[franandaj]

Thanks for posting this thread Kimmar, I read about someone else saying photobucket was going to charge them $399 per year to use their service. What a pain!

I finally found the official notice about photobucket. My pics are good until Dec. 31 2018 because I have a Plus account, but I'm not uploading any more to that site and looking for another solution.

 

[franandaj]

Hey! I figured out how to use my existing hosting site for picture sharing! We have to use this for our business anyways and pay for it every three to four years. I also use it for hosting an online cookbook, hence the picture of food rather than an apartment for rent.