Photobucket Just Broke Billions of Photos Across the Web

[Huntn]

For 700 photos I'd save myself the aggravation of waiting for the album to maybe start downloading and just do it manually. Probably only take an hour.
Then take some pleasure out of closing your account and telling them why!

Today I successfully downloaded 20 images from Photobucket one by one, which went pretty fast. I have moved them to Imgur. Photobucket album download is still giving me an error message, which at this point I assume, that although there is a "download album" button, that this function only works with a paid account.

Here is a test top see if image link will appear in this post: http://imgur.com/ip5insv
Hmm, so for anyone familiar with Imgur, how do I link this so it appears in this post? When I insert the above link, into the forum image form, it does not appear. I realize the link is missing a photo suffix like .jpg. What needs to be done, anyone? Thanks!

 

[ActionableMango]

Hmm, so for anyone familiar with Imgur, how do I link this so it appears in this post?

Just add ".gif" to the URL. (It doesn't matter if it if a GIF, JPG, PNG, etc.)

By the way, Imgur changed its TOS to discourage hotlinking. They also removed all obvious help for how to hotlink (adding ".gif" is a workaround). So it would not surprise me if some day they stop allowing hotlinking too. Just something to keep in mind if you are going to invest a lot of time moving content there.

 

[Huntn]

Just add ".gif" to the URL. (It doesn't matter if it if a GIF, JPG, PNG, etc.)

By the way, Imgur changed its TOS to discourage hotlinking. They also removed all obvious help for how to hotlink (adding ".gif" is a workaround). So it would not surprise me if some day they stop allowing hotlinking too. Just something to keep in mind if you are going to invest a lot of time moving content there.

Thank you for this help! Imgur might be inundated with Photobucket refugees. What other service might be considered for this purpose? I know others have been mentioned in this thread. I'll review. As previously mentioned, I have 700 images to potentially move.

 

[ActionableMango]

What other service might be considered for this purpose?

Sorry man, I have no idea. I still use Imgur and the workaround, but I have no time invested in it as it is all throwaway stuff. So I don't care if hotlinking goes away.

 

[bunnspecial]

I have several thousand photos on Photobucket and have spread them across the web for well over 10 years.

The thing is, I'd have no issue paying them to host images. There are two issues, though. One is that I'm not paying THAT much for it-I'd value their service at ~$50 a year and would gladly pay that, but not 8x that. I say that in light of the fact that the site is still heavily ad supported and has a UI that only keeps getting more cluttered, slower, and more difficult to use. The second thing is that the change happened over night-there was no forewarning that they were going to implement the change, and that hit a lot of people HARD.

I too see it as a last ditch attempt to keep from going under.

 

[SkyBell]

Knew there was a reason I always disliked this website, even ten years ago something about them just didn't sit right with me. I suppose I have nothing to complain about, all of my important images are stored locally - I would never trust a cloud/image hosting service to keep my photos safe.

 

[Huntn]

I have several thousand photos on Photobucket and have spread them across the web for well over 10 years.

The thing is, I'd have no issue paying them to host images. There are two issues, though. One is that I'm not paying THAT much for it-I'd value their service at ~$50 a year and would gladly pay that, but not 8x that. I say that in light of the fact that the site is still heavily ad supported and has a UI that only keeps getting more cluttered, slower, and more difficult to use. The second thing is that the change happened over night-there was no forewarning that they were going to implement the change, and that hit a lot of people HARD.

I too see it as a last ditch attempt to keep from going under.

Every so often I use photos from my hard drives, but on another forum they are very strict, and it's very limited, how much can be uploaded, so infrequently I hotlink from Photobucket. Now I'll slowly move photos over to Imgur.

 

[jknight8907]

Unfortunately even if users abandon Photobucket and move to a new provider, thousands of very useful forum posts with how-to guides, etc, are permanently destroyed.

 

[D.T.]

Also don't forget, there a number of free-to-very-cheap cloud storage systems, that don't necessarily have photo specific features, but if you just need image storage and a link, they're a good option.

 

[ActionableMango]

Unfortunately even if users abandon Photobucket and move to a new provider, thousands of very useful forum posts with how-to guides, etc, are permanently destroyed.

Yes many times I've run into tutorials where all of the pictures are missing, and the pictures were really the main point. It makes the whole effort useless.

MacRumors at least allows attachments locally, so if you are an author and want to post how-to-guides here, you might as well host the images here too. If you are a consumer and you see an important how-to guide that you'll need to reference from time to time, save the webpage as a PDF or whatever. There are a couple of times I wished that I had done that.
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What other service might be considered for this purpose?

The problem with dedicated image hosting companies that provide free service is that they fairly quickly have to figure out a way to monetize their business or they go under. Imgur is already taking steps to hide or reduce hotlinking, so I worry that they will be in the same boat in a couple of years.

@D.T. makes a good point, that perhaps you should move to a cloud provider like Apple iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, or Google Photos. These companies provide image hosting services for free like Photobucket and Imgur, but they make their money elsewhere so its unlikely that they will ever charge for small scale image hosting. I've hosted images and video there myself for wide Internet consumption, but it has made me a little bit uncomfortable because I also put personal and family photos there and I worry I'll mix them up or I might get doxxed or something. So I might set up a separate account just for random Internet photo sharing.

 

[Huntn]

Yes many times I've run into tutorials where all of the pictures are missing, and the pictures were really the main point. It makes the whole effort useless.

MacRumors at least allows attachments locally, so if you are an author and want to post how-to-guides here, you might as well host the images here too. If you are a consumer and you see an important how-to guide that you'll need to reference from time to time, save the webpage as a PDF or whatever. There are a couple of times I wished that I had done that.
[doublepost=1502821589][/doublepost]

The problem with dedicated image hosting companies that provide free service is that they fairly quickly have to figure out a way to monetize their business or they go under. Imgur is already taking steps to hide or reduce hotlinking, so I worry that they will be in the same boat in a couple of years.

@D.T. makes a good point, that perhaps you should move to a cloud provider like Apple iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, or Google Photos. These companies provide image hosting services for free like Photobucket and Imgur, but they make their money elsewhere so its unlikely that they will ever charge for small scale image hosting. I've hosted images and video there myself for wide Internet consumption, but it has made me a little bit uncomfortable because I also put personal and family photos there and I worry I'll mix them up or I might get doxxed or something. So I might set up a separate account just for random Internet photo sharing.

Thanks, I'll look at Google Photos, besides the free account, have a minimal Google Docs account I pay for, and I wonder if the Google Photos would be separate or all lumped together. I'll check it out.

 

[tpham5919]

Dang, that explains the broken links I've been seeing.

 

[MDMachiavelli]

Knew there was a reason I always disliked this website, even ten years ago something about them just didn't sit right with me. I suppose I have nothing to complain about, all of my important images are stored locally - I would never trust a cloud/image hosting service to keep my photos safe.

What about keeping them in both places, for redundancy?

 

[D.T.]

What about keeping them in both places, for redundancy?

Yeah, part of the reason I use photo-<whatever>, is for an additional backup. Our photos are device, local computers, cloud backup and at least two different image/cloud solutions (including Google Photos).

 

[MDMachiavelli]

Yeah, part of the reason I use photo-<whatever>, is for an additional backup. Our photos are device, local computers, cloud backup and at least two different image/cloud solutions (including Google Photos).

When backing up data I'm pretty sure redundancy is a good thing.

 

[D.T.]

When backing up data I'm pretty sure redundancy is a good thing.

Absolutely, I think I've got most of my important files - that mostly being photos/videos, documents, source code - covered by at least 3 mechanisms. While you can have catastrophic failure, you get a number of redundancies, it's very likely you'll permanently lose data.

 

[MDMachiavelli]

Absolutely, I think I've got most of my important files - that mostly being photos/videos, documents, source code - covered by at least 3 mechanisms. While you can have catastrophic failure, you get a number of redundancies, it's very likely you'll permanently lose data.

Yep.

 

[D.T.]

Duh, very UNLIKELY.

Watching TV, writing code, several adult beverages = typos

 

[maxjohnson2]

I don't like photobucket nor imgur. I use Google Drive and imgbb.

 

[SkyBell]

What about keeping them in both places, for redundancy?

I suppose I could have been clearer about that, ha - I have a Dropbox where I keep copies of a number of important files, including a few photos. It astounds me that some people keep all their files on one hard drive/cloud service, and then are shocked and appalled when it fails them and they don't have any other copies.

 

[0388631]

The thing with DropBox is they have their own redudencies since they're such a widely used service. Their service is hosted on Amazon S3 servers, too. I believe the cheapest file hosting right now is through Amazon. I've taken advantage of the Prime benefits, but also pay for the additional hosting. It hasn't failed me yet, and I've a lot of confidence in Amazon. I use DropBox, too, but their 1 TB limit for personal accounts is silly. They really could open up more tiers. Though you can sign up for a business account and use that, according to their tech support. It's been 1 TB forever, it seems.

 

[D.T.]

The thing with DropBox is they have their own redudencies since they're such a widely used service. Their service is hosted on Amazon S3 servers, too. I believe the cheapest file hosting right now is through Amazon. I've taken advantage of the Prime benefits, but also pay for the additional hosting. It hasn't failed me yet, and I've a lot of confidence in Amazon. I use DropBox, too, but their 1 TB limit for personal accounts is silly. They really could open up more tiers. Though you can sign up for a business account and use that, according to their tech support. It's been 1 TB forever, it seems.

Look into Backblaze B2 service

 

[0388631]

Look into Backblaze B2 service

I did. Their service is geared more towards people who need a specific amount of space unless you go with their sync service. As I said, with Amazon, it's a flat fee. The may whine if they notice you uploading all the time or abusing their service. I know a few people who've uploaded TBs of data without Amazon complaining. This was spread over time.

I tried their sync and the backup and wasn't very impressed. They capped upload after a while and cap download speeds. The only service that's unadulterated has been Amazon's, and that can make out my connection. So a little over 41 MB/sec download or 330 Mbps. My ISP over provisions.

Edit: It appears Amazon has changed their pricing. It's still good. I am apparently grandfathered in on the previous plan, which I don't plan on changing.

Edit 2: If Amazon got into the photo printing and delivery game, it would be great. I still get keeper photos printed, but it's a chore these days. Yet it required me to take a roll in years ago.

 

[D.T.]

I have several TBs backed up with Backblaze, $5/month, flat rate, no issues - that's their consumer backup service. S3 is not a flat fee, just like B2, I have multiple apps using S3 for storage into the 100s of TBs, the fee is based on storage up/down, and B2 is very competitive - it's a cloud object storage service (it doesn't have a specific UI like their backup service, there's an API or you can use a software solution like ARQ).

 

[0388631]

S3 is not a flat fee, just like B2, I have multiple apps using S3 for storage into the 100s of TBs, the fee is based on storage up/down, and B2 is very competitive - it's a cloud object storage service (it doesn't have a specific UI like their backup service, there's an API or you can use a software solution like ARQ).

The thing with DropBox is they have their own redudencies since they're such a widely used service. Their service is hosted on Amazon S3 servers, too. I believe the cheapest file hosting right now is through Amazon. I've taken advantage of the Prime benefits, but also pay for the additional hosting.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/...w-dropbox-stores-stuff-for-200-million-users/

How does Dropbox store files for those 200 million users, who store 1 billion files every 24 hours? The company uses more than uses more than 10,000 physical servers to manage user content, along with Amazon Web Services. User metadata is stored in the company's data centers, while the actual files reside on Amazon's S3 storage service. Dropbox also uses Amazon EC2 instances to help the data centers "talk" to its cloud storage.

https://www.wired.com/2016/03/epic-story-dropboxs-exodus-amazon-cloud-empire/

For most of its existence, Dropbox ran partly on Amazon and partly off. If a bunch of people shared some files via Dropbox, the company stored the files on Amazon's Simple Storage Service, or S3, while housing all the metadata related to those files—who they belonged to, who was allowed to download them, and more—on its own machines inside its own data center space.

Amazon Cloud Drive uses cordoned off S3 to store your files through a neat GUI. I've confirmed this with Amazon. I never said S3 is flat flee. I said this:

I believe the cheapest file hosting right now is through Amazon. I've taken advantage of the Prime benefits, but also pay for the additional hosting.

Prime Customers, as you would know, don't get free S3. All Amazon customers do get 5 GB free as base storage, with 100 GB and 1 TB storage options. Much like the real S3, data is copied and transferred to three data centers for retention should something happen. Common sense dictates it's not on an EFS-EC2 cluster or EBS, and it's definitely not on Glacier.

Getting back to the correct discussion now. As I said, I did use their Sync service, which is what your $5 a month is. I used them from the end of 2015 to earlier this year alongside ACD and DropBox. I wasn't remotely impressed and had issues often. Even going step by step through their suggestions.


Work wise, I've never dealt with AWS. At the time of inception, AWS didn't offer what Uncle Sam required of us. They do now, but we're pretty comfortable where we are.