Photobucket is now charging $400/yr for sharing photos with forums

[smart dog]

Hi Folks,
Photobucket just changed their policy and is now charging $400/yr for third party hosting, which means all of your photos on Photobucket shared with this forum.  They severed all links with photos so if you are using them, your photos are no longer displayed on this site unless you pay up.  They did this with almost no warning and many tech gurus think they are doomed.  Apparently all new membership on their site has ceased and virtually all the traffic is people off loading their images.  I off loaded all my images and am looking for a new hosting site but I will have to update all the links in my many posts to the new address if I want the photos to be reposted.  This is the kind of "digital tech" behavior that will eventually ruin many people.

dave

[flehto]

Used their site a couple of days ago and the steady intrusion of pop up ads made it impossible  to post pics. Thought they were going under and no doubt will....no body is willing to spend $400/yr when some services are free. Lucky thing that I have all my pics in my computer so won't retrieve any from them. If you find a good site, please let me know.....Fred

[B.Barker]

I checked out one site, I think it was imgur or something like that. Never could figure out how to download a photo to their sit though. I aint very techish so you can't go by my failures. You might try it.

[Rolf]

I checked a few of my previous posts. All the Pictures are there. No problems posting New Pictures in this reply. No ones billed me 400$. But then again, I've bougth exstra Storage Space from photobucket. Costs 60$ a year and garanties no pop up adds.

Smart dog, are you sure Your information is correct? If they try to bill me 400$, I'm going to stop using photobucket.

Best regards
Rolf

[Rolf]

You are rigth smart dog. I checked photobuckets website. I can't understand how the dare try such a stunt. I sent them an email telling them I'm cancelling my Subscription if the go throurgh With it.

Best regards
Rolf

[Majorjoel]

I canceled my photobucket plus subscription that I have been paying for several years just this morning.

I wonder what ill effects this attempted black mail will have upon our ALR Library!

About a year ago I joined up with Flickr (another photo storage service) but do not see a way to directly attach photos to my posts.

This is just a test to see if this is something I can use: https://www.flickr.com/photos/140063658@N08/shares/a6M0sQ

[vtmtnman]

I used photobucket for some other forums and it is quite the pain to use.

Try this one,fast uploads and no pop ups.

http://imgur.com

[Dennis Glazener]

I set-up am account with http://imgbb.com which is the site ALR photo uploads are stored on. If you upload using ALR upload feature the photo is stored at a random location on the http://imgbb.com site. If you create an account with http://imgbb.com you can use it like photocopier.
Dennis

[smart dog]

Hi,
I signed up with imgur.com.  It is a far better host than Photobucket.  No ads and very simple procedures to upload photos and then share them. Uploads are fast and to include an image in your posts, just place your pointer on the uploaded image you want, then click on the little down arrow and select "get share options", which brings up a menu, and click copy by the "forum" option.  Then go to your post and paste.  You don't need to use the ALR menu button for embedding photos. It is very simple. Dennis thanks for mentioning the other option.  I chose Imgur because I post photos on other sites that may not be linked to imgbb.

dave 

[wattlebuster]

I just checked my photo bucket acct an they didnt ask me for any money but in the same breath I can get a pic to copy an paste. They can just delete my acct an wish they had my 400 dollars. I made it for a long time without them so I dont figure I will lose any sleep over them now

[Rolf]

I set-up am account with http://imgbb.com which is the site ALR photo uploads are stored on. If you upload using ALR upload feature the photo is stored at a random location on the http://imgbb.com site. If you create an account with http://imgbb.com you can use it like photocopier.
Dennis

Dennis, What about all the Pictures in the tutorial section? I sure hope we don't lose them. Any simple way to fix this?

Best regards
Rolf

[Eric Krewson]

You can see the old photobucket pictures if you right click on their black mail announcement and open the picture in a new tab, cumbersome but it works.

If photobucket had asked for say, $25 a year I would have gone along with it but $400, nah.

[Mike Brooks]

No problems here, all of my stuff is still up. I've been paying them $25 a year for ever and found their sight very easy to use. I hope not to ever have an issue with them , I have about a million pictures stored over there that would be gone for ever if they pulled the plug on me.....

[smart dog]

Hi,
You won't lose your photos unless they go under.  What they are doing is making you pay to share those photos with a third party host like a forum.  I think they are hitting those with the lowest subscription rates first and then they may move up the ladder.  For them to do this unannounced and just cut all links is outrageous but then Photobucket has been getting worse over time with all the ads and very clunky windows.  A number of online tech gurus that regularly review internet products have been bashing Photobucket for falling behind both technically and in customer service.  For me this is actually a good thing because it gives me the chance to reorganize my photos and migrate to a technically much better host.  I will have to go back and embed photos from the new host in my more important posts such as tutorials, but that's OK.     

dave

[PPatch]

I just went through the Metal section of the tutorials and it looks like we've lost about 10-15% of the pix. Not as bad as I thought, other sections might be worse.

dave

[WadePatton]

Never paid a penny for image hosting. I too use imgur.com when I have to. And mostly that was for posting things here. Generally everything else I run through FB. 

When I set up a website, I suppose I'll need more, but until then I don't.

[hanshi]

Hi Folks,
Photobucket just changed their policy and is now charging $400/yr for third party hosting, which means all of your photos on Photobucket shared with this forum.  They severed all links with photos so if you are using them, your photos are no longer displayed on this site unless you pay up.  They did this with almost no warning and many tech gurus think they are doomed.  Apparently all new membership on their site has ceased and virtually all the traffic is people off loading their images.  I off loaded all my images and am looking for a new hosting site but I will have to update all the links in my many posts to the new address if I want the photos to be reposted.  This is the kind of "digital tech" behavior that will eventually ruin many people.

dave

90% of my photos are photobucket; they are a miserable site for sure.  My question is, How do you get photos transferred to a new hosting site?   

[Mauser06]

Hanshi, I don't know there is an easy way to transfer the pics elsewhere.   I've downloaded my account once and believe I was able to download all of them from one click...didn't have to do them individually.  Then you'd have to upload them on a new site. 



Photobucket surely got squirrely lately.  The app on my phone worked OK usually.  Trying to use the website it usually crashed itself from all the popups and junk. 




Going to try to download all mine again and get rid of it...I  used it for so long that's why I kept using it.

[smart dog]

Hi Hanshi,
When you open up your Photobucket library, you will see a command on the lower right (along with other commands) to download your album.  Just click on that and it will begin the process.  You will have to click a download button again after it has compressed the files and asks if you are ready to download.  It will download a compressed file of all of your photos in that album and then I open the the little download window that pops up on the bottom of your screen and ask it to show me the file in folder. When it does, I copy and paste that file into my photos folder on my computer.  You need to do this for every separate album in your Photobucket account.  If you have everything in one library (which it treats as an album) you only have to do the download once.  The files on your computer are compressed so you have to extract them before you can see them.  Just click on the folder and select "extract" and it unzips all of the photos into that same folder.  Unfortunately, then you have upload everything as you need it into imgur.com.  You can upload a batch of photos at a time by just holding down the control key and clicking on the photos you want to upload when you select them in imgur.

dave 

[David Rase]

Dave,
Thanks for the "tutorial" on downloading fromPhotobucket.  I down loaded all my photos and deleted my account.  It was a very easy process using your instructions.  Now I need to sit down with a few cold Dos Equis and go through my posting history and start updating photos.
David

[Ky-Flinter]

PhotoBucket updated their Terms of Use on June 28, 2017.   http://photobucket.com/terms

They will no longer allow 3rd party hosting unless you buy their $399.99/year plan.  You can continue to use PhotoBucket to store pictures, but you will not be able to link your PhotoBucket photos to any other site, including ALR, unless you pay up.

Excepts from PhotoBucket's new Terms of Use:
The free account does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting.

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.

Gentlemen this is a catastrophe for ALR!  Most of the older pictures on ALR are hosted on Photobucket.  You may be able to see your photos on ALR now, but it is only a matter of time before they are replaced by a PhotoBucket instruction for you to upgrade your PhotoBucket account.

-Ron

[Ky-Flinter]

Luckily, I have all my photos stored on my PC and only used PhotoBucket to host the pictures I posted here on ALR.

Dave (Smart Dog) has mentioned he will be going thru his old posts to update all the photo links so the pictures will again be visible.

I will be doing the same, and I truly hope every ALR member who is able to do so will update their photo links on ALR as well.

This will be a huge commitment in time, but ALR is too valuable not to do it.

-Ron

[jcmcclure]

Luckily, I have all my photos stored on my PC and only used PhotoBucket to host the pictures I posted here on ALR.

Dave (Smart Dog) has mentioned he will be going thru his old posts to update all the photo links so the pictures will again be visible.

I will be doing the same, and I truly hope every ALR member who is able to do so will update their photo links on ALR as well.

This will be a huge commitment in time, but ALR is too valuable not to do it.

-Ron

Ron,

What are other options available for picture posting. I will obviously be setting up some type of new account with whoever offer a free option.

[Mark Elliott]

I have mentioned this before and I will mention it again.   I put all my shared photos up on Amazon S3.    I also use it for distributing large files and photo archives, and as a content delivery network for my web site.   For all that, I pay about $0.20 a month.   

[smart dog]

Luckily, I have all my photos stored on my PC and only used PhotoBucket to host the pictures I posted here on ALR.

Dave (Smart Dog) has mentioned he will be going thru his old posts to update all the photo links so the pictures will again be visible.

I will be doing the same, and I truly hope every ALR member who is able to do so will update their photo links on ALR as well.

This will be a huge commitment in time, but ALR is too valuable not to do it.

-Ron

Ron,

What are other options available for picture posting. I will obviously be setting up some type of new account with whoever offer a free option.

Hi,
Mark Elliot mentioned a good alternative and there is imgur.com and flikr.com, which seem to be good sites.  I don't mind paying a subscription that is actually appropriate for the service but not $400.  I suspect Photobucket may find they made a huge mistake.  None of the internet reviews of image hosting I have read lately recommend Photobucket.

dave