Photobucket Causing Grief With Hosted Images

[jrg_from_oz]

If anyone in this forum has hosted their images on Photobucket and then linked the image to a forum post, then your image in the post will most likely disappear, if it hasn't already.

Photobucket has changed their TOS with no warning, and are now demanding $399.99pa if you want to link your photobucket images to another website.

Most of the world is calling it ransomware - if you google photobucket, you'll find many thousands of references to the chaos it has caused in forums worldwide.

If you have a photobucket account, I suggest you make sure you have a backup copy of all your hosted images, as it seems that not paying up may result in you being locked out of your account.

John

[Nevol]

I noticed some time ago that a lot of my older PB links as well as Tinypic links were kaput.

I now only do images for posting via the TACF Gallery and am working my way through all my world coins, currently up to Philippines, and have a spreadsheet listing all the coins as well as all the links.

[Basil]

If anyone in this forum has hosted their images on Photobucket and then linked the image to a forum post, then your image in the post will most likely disappear, if it hasn't already.

John

Yeah,causing dramas on some of the Motor Sport Forums i visit,the same thing happened about 3 years ago with another major Photo Host(can't remember the name but they're still around)when they started charging fees overnite.

[gnome]

Have done it a couple of times, but not recently, will have to go back and have a look. Thanks for the heads up.

[Robster]

As above!

[Fulvio]

Meh. Use Imgur. It was born out of precisely such a situation.

[Triggersmob]

Last couple of times I've been on Photobucket, the pop up adds annoyed the hell out of me.
There's nothing there that I need to keep, so I have deleted my account.

[gnome]

Just opened up an account on Imgur, as Fulvio suggested,  and having a play around. None of those stupid popup adds there Seems easy enough to navigate around.

[Fulvio]

Just opened up an account on Imgur, as Fulvio suggested,  and having a play around. None of those stupid popup adds there Seems easy enough to navigate around.

That's because it was designed by a frustrated user, not a corporate rent-seeker.

Nice how they also give you pre-built links for HTML, BBCode, etc.

[trout]

I keep ALL my images on various portable hard drives, These are as cheap as chips now I think I only paid about $100 for a 2tb drive.
Also the images I post here are also stored in the forum gallery (Big thank you to Mark) and are also secure.
I have Never used any of the internet based photo bucket type sites simply because they are a PITA to use.

[runway]

*URGENT WARNING* if you use, or have ever used, photobucket
www.photobucket.com

They are huge.  Operating for 14 years, (once owned by News Corp)
Photobucket hosts more than 15 **BILLION** images, from 100 million unique
global registered members -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photobucket

This week photobucket pulled off the largest global Corporate Ransom Demand
that anyone can remember.

With no email warning of any kind to users, BILLIONS of picture links on
forums and Twitter, etc, were deliberately removed and broken, and replaced
with a "Please update your account to enable 3rd party hosting" Ransom
Demand message.  

From zero a year cost, Photobucket now demands EACH user pays them
$US399.99 ($A525 ) in order for ANY of your images saved here for years
to be displayed to others.

This has caused global outcry of course, as 100 MILLION unique folks
globally use them to display images on Bulletin Boards, blogs, ebay,
Craig's list, and Twitter (photobucket were their official image site!) and
other social media etc.

This thought bubble was rolled out by a trained chip it appears, with no
system whatever - region, country, continents, amount of images etc are not
part of it - a total and unfathomable mess.

As there are other well established, totally free, or very low cost image
hosting alternatives out there, it was the dumbest Corporate move since the
"New Coke" fiasco!

There are legal and all kinds of Consumer Affairs actions and so on
occurring in the USA of course
it has caused an issue, as for a million other hobby and special interest

Advice is 4 things –

1. Despite them acting exactly like Ukrainian "WannaCry" Ransom Gangsters,
instead of a huge American Corporation, do NOT delete your account in anger
as you may be first inclined to do.  Do not move around files or folders. It is
possible someone in there might come to their senses this week, and
backtrack on this on the global outrage cuts in. Their income now all comes
from the barrage of annoying pop-up ads and videos on their site, and the
advertisers will have pulled out in droves I am sure.  No-one legit company
wants to be connected to Gangsters.  

2. Sign up NOW for a free www.IMGUR.com
account, and add new images to there, and if you wish, save your important
photobucket ones there.  Even if by chance your PB images still show NOW,
they may well vanish tomorrow,  if they go bust in a month, kiss them
goodbye.  So do that NOW.  Imgur is easy to use, totally free, and has been
far better and more stable than photobucket for years anyway simple

3. Download a copy of all your images right now stored in photobucket.  As
I type they ALL are downloadable even if the Ransom Clock icon shows
COMMUNITY and Gangsters will not prevail over Team Spirit -
DO not bother wasting energy emailing photobucket about it etc.  Their
Facebook and Twitter accounts and their own blogs are overwhelmed with
global screeching, most of which they are deleting as it is posted it
seems, and they are ignoring the complaints of their 15 Million members, so
use your time to transfer and safeguard your images instead.

4. DO visit your account at www.photobucket.com and add SOMETHING to your
account.  Just uploading many random image keeps your account "active".  It
may be that photobucket deletes or closes accounts with no notice, they
deem "inactive" to solve their storage issue costs, so keep one step ahead
of them, by sidestepping that ASAP.

[Ozcoins]

Just opened up an account on Imgur, as Fulvio suggested,  and having a play around. None of those stupid popup adds there Seems easy enough to navigate around.

That's because it was designed by a frustrated user, not a corporate rent-seeker.

That's nice.  
Its great - until the outlook of the owner changes.
Or the owner changes to someone else with a different outlook.
That may never happen, but you have no idea when it might.
With no notice period or anything else.
Anything where you rely on someone else, who you don't know from a bar of soap, for anything, could go bad at any moment.
That's pretty much what "cloud" means.

[Robster]

So it seems that all the images on this forum that have been uploaded from Photobucket are now being held to ransom! I could understand anything after the notification is fair game but to backdate it forever is very rude i.m.o. :dodgy:

I am not sure if I have the energy to take another 2,000 images again - lesson learnt for me!
I have opened an Imgur account, although 'not happy Jan' is how I feel this morning! :ireful:

[Unicorn]

I can't blame you for being rattled Robster. I know how much effort goes into taking good images.

I'm lucky enough to have only used the forum gallery so far.

[trout]

I have opened an Imgur account, although 'not happy Jan' is how I feel this morning!

What's to say that Imgur won't go down the same path that Photobucket has when it becomes popular :angel: