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I'm making this thread in response to @Morrigan's discussion on Imgur and their recent crackdown on hot linking. Imgur has blocked Jcink from using their service recently (source). While I only do a browse or word search when looking through TOS, Imgur's terms of service is not for image hosting. Wait, or is it? Whatever. It doesn't matter. The bottom line is: You can't use Imgur if you want to link to your images.

 

Quote

 

the imgur story

 

Imgur was founded in 2009 by Alan Schaaf in his Ohio University dorm room as a simple, no-limits platform to share images online.

 

With the launch of the homepage gallery, Imgur gave its community the power to refine its many images into a showcase of the freshest, most interesting and popular images on the web. These images can be hilarious, cute, inspiring and informative. From stories of personal transformation to current events, pop culture, memes and more, Imgur has an image for everyone. Of course, there are plenty of cute puppies, too.

 

Each month, images on Imgur are viewed across the Internet billions of times. It is currently ranked one of the top 50 largest websites worldwide.

 

 

Basically, Imgur is for viewing the most viral images on the internet, not hosting your graphics. You can view their TOS here. It's not too long. But just in case you're a professional potato (like me), I'll quote a major point in their TOS:

 

Quote

Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network. If you do – and we will be the judge – or if you do anything illegal, in addition to any other legal rights we may have, we will ban you along with the site you're hotlinking from, delete all your images, report you to the authorities if necessary, and prevent you from viewing any images hosted on Imgur.com. We mean it.

 

So there you have it. 

 

Anyway, I'm sure a lot of you, like me, are bummed. Because honestly, their short links is what sold me. I spent a lot of money on upgrading my account to have access to unlimited uploads. And even though they said that they have removed the limits and stopped the paid, upgraded account service, my account is still being restricted based on their old restrictions. Ugh. So for me, that's still frustrating but I'm not the type to cry over split milk. However I'm sure that some of you might be looking for a new place to host your images.

 

So what are your options?

 

  • First, and foremost, if you're looking for a place to upload your layout images, then you should be looking at your forum host first. A lot of forum hosts, including Jcink, offer to host your images for your community. In some cases, it's free. In other cases, you'll have to pay to have more storage, but generally they give you enough space to upload what you need for your forum. I highly recommending uploading all your images for your layout with your forum host. Not only will your community load faster (because it's not calling and retrieving information from a third party), but it'll help with the load times on your forum. Load times are important. And it becomes a make or break factor with some members that have a slower/non-priority connection speed. 

 

Other image hosting sites can be found by going to google and using your magic little fingers. I found several websites that I will kind of link to below, but as I'm a professional potato, I only skim TOS and search these policies for keywords. Yeah, I know, you can criticize me all you want, but if the service leaves me scratching my head by either hunting down what their site is about, or if they market it to true image hosting (when it may not be the case), then that's on them. I'll still link to the TOS's for you to do the homework, because I'm only liable for me and mine.

 

Here's a few image hosting options I found: 

 

  1. Tinypic -- "TinyPic® is a photo and video sharing service that lets you easily upload, link, and share your images and videos on MySpace®, eBay®, Orkut Scrapbooks, blogs, and message boards." -- [ TOS ] I browsed through it and didn't see any kind of restrictions, other than the content you "post" has to adhere to international laws.  It's owned by PhotoBucket now.
     
  2. Photobucket -- "Photobucket offers photo and video storage, story creation products and sharing services (collectively referred to as "Photobucket Services") that are offered via the Site, other social media, mobile services and mobile applications." -- [ TOS ] I didn't see anything related to "forum/message boards" so this could be an open field. I highly recommend scanning this TOS. It's not too long, but there are vague points. Also, if you're using this for image hosting layouts, I suggest having your folders on private lock down, otherwise other users can freely redistribute whatever they find. Photobucket also sells prints, so this could be an issue if you don't private/lock your folders.
     
  3. Imageshack -- "Sharing is easy and you have full control of privacy. You can share a single image or even a whole album. Use us for business. We will host your images for your site of forum. Upload quickly and get any link type you need. Discover new inspirations with our follow feature. Follow other photographers, friends and even your family."  -- [ TOS ] The first line in this TOS is "ImageShack is here to serve all of your image hosting needs...
     
  4. Imagevenue -- "Free Image Hosting for bloggers, message board users, and eBay sellers." -- [ TOS ] Short and to the point. 
     
  5. Postimage -- "Postimage.org was founded in 2004 to provide forums with an easy way to upload images for free. Postimage is a very simple, fast, reliable free image host. It's perfect for linking to auctions, message boards, blogs, and other websites. " -- [ TOS ] Short and to the point.

 

You can discuss other options as well, because I'm sure it's well worth it if they are true image hosting sites for general purposes. If you want to post your art/professional photography, there are other options out there. Stick to "image hosting" sites that are basically art portfolios, like deviantArt and Weasyl. If you're looking for a place to host your images for your layouts, then I suggest looking into your forum host first.

 

Other than that, Imgur was a lesson learned, yeah? I also suggest taking a look at this list of photo-sharing websites that I found on the infamous Wikipedia. If you scroll down, they touch on the kind of features each site has and they compare them. Might be userful if you're looking for something that lets you organize your stuff.

Edited by CandleJack
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Awesome post! Thanks @CandleJack for posting it.

 

I have been self-hosting for nearly a decade so I actually never used imgur.... But regardless of that I feel bad about the recent changes and crack down.

 

If anyone needs just an image host for your layouts, let me know and we can probably setup a hosting account just for your images. ^_^ You can still use any of my URLs with a subdomain (the first one that comes to mind is aanfh.com as it's the shortest one if that's what you like). Hosting your images from a cookieless domain really helps loading times too. That's what we do on DF.

 

Edit: I forgot to add that for RPs I primarily use Tinypic as it's pretty hassle free for me.

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Profile set made by myself and original Artwork by Fae Merriman, my daughter.

 

 

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Selected other because I mainly use Jcink file manager. Though I was using Imgur for affiliate minibanner and a few other things, ironically the ones that are most of a pain to switch over (always the way).

 

Thank you all for these alternatives. :D

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Honestly, I'm kind of bummed. The best for my needs is Photobucket, but they have the longest freakin' urls. :/ I would use TinyPic if they gave me the option to be a private member or privatize my image uploads. I'm still going through some of the sites but... :/ Why, Photobucket, are you such a freakin' pain? It's slow, too. 

 

ImageShack would be my choice, but you have to pay for their direct link service. I think that's a little odd, tbh, but it makes sense with the cost of hot linking. Still. :/ 

Edited by CandleJack
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12 minutes ago, CandleJack said:

Honestly, I'm kind of bummed. The best for my needs is Photobucket, but they have the longest freakin' urls. :/ I would use TinyPic if they gave me the option to be a private member or privatize my image uploads. I'm still going through some of the sites but... :/ Why, Photobucket, are you such a freakin' pain? It's slow, too.

 

ImageShack would be my choice, but you have to pay for their direct link service. I think that's a little odd, tbh, but it makes sense with the cost of hot linking. Still. :/

Yup. I originally left Photobucket years ago when they introduced that new thing where you enter a direct URL and it still redirects you to their album view. All those changes which just seemed to make it feel like you're back on dial up while trying to navigate.

 

I'm thinking someimage. Spork (who runs it and also Icyboards) has offered hotlinking to Jcink in light of this whole ordeal. So a host which acts compassionately like this deserves the support.

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@Honorem, I just checked out Photobucket's account settings. The whole re-directing you to the album view can be turned off! I originally thought this was apart of the forced upgrade thing they did to, but as of today, I learned you can turn that shit off. >_>; That makes it a little more... you know. It's not as slow as it was when they released the initial update, but ya'know. It's still slow. And the long URLs turn me off. It's a hassle to keep going to tinyurl.

 

Also, I will check out SomeImage. 

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7 minutes ago, CandleJack said:

@Honorem, I just checked out Photobucket's account settings. The whole re-directing you to the album view can be turned off! I originally thought this was apart of the forced upgrade thing they did to, but as of today, I learned you can turn that shit off. >_>; That makes it a little more... you know. It's not as slow as it was when they released the initial update, but ya'know. It's still slow. And the long URLs turn me off. It's a hassle to keep going to tinyurl.

 

Also, I will check out SomeImage.

Haha wow, thanks, I never knew that. Guess I'll take another look. :D

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My Initial Review of SomeImage: 

 

  • It's fast. Really fast
  • Easy to upload. You can create folders.
  • I see no way to turn your account/galleries into private, but I do not see a 'image search' on the site. This is like a counter balance, because unless you know the scrambled URL to the gallery, there's no need for me to make private folders or whatever.
  • Based on what is said above, this is purely for image hosting. No reason to search for images. This rocks.  
  • Short URLS!
  • The interface is a little bit on the primitive side, but it's a very efficient and effective system.
  • Their TOS is short and to the point. There's no restrictions: this is a true image hosting website.
  • This has now become my go-to image hosting site for basically everything. Wow thank you so much for sharing this gem.

I self host or host my layout images on my forums when I'm able to. So if anyone needs cookieless hosting, go with @Morrigan. SomeImage seems extremely promising. I love it. I will use to for everything I need when it comes to non-related stuff (like thumbnails for my art and stuff). 

 

Yessssss.

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9 minutes ago, CandleJack said:

My Initial Review of SomeImage:

 

  • It's fast. Really fast.
  • Easy to upload. You can create folders.
  • I see no way to turn your account/galleries into private, but I do not see a 'image search' on the site. This is like a counter balance, because unless you know the scrambled URL to the gallery, there's no need for me to make private folders or whatever.
  • Based on what is said above, this is purely for image hosting. No reason to search for images. This rocks. 
  • Short URLS!
  • The interface is a little bit on the primitive side, but it's a very efficient and effective system.
  • Their TOS is short and to the point. There's no restrictions: this is a true image hosting website.
  • This has now become my go-to image hosting site for basically everything. Wow thank you so much for sharing this gem.

I self host or host my layout images on my forums when I'm able to. So if anyone needs cookieless hosting, go with @Morrigan. SomeImage seems extremely promising. I love it. I will use to for everything I need when it comes to non-related stuff (like thumbnails for my art and stuff).

 

Yessssss.

+1 then, I'm sold. Initially I was going for it because of the generosity, but now I'm sold.

 

-Whispers- Nice signature.

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  • 1 month later...

I was using imgur before it was announced that they blocked jcink and don't allowing linking of images, then I went back to tinypic for awhile but tinypic has had issues with replacing or deleting images apparently.  Then I found out about a host that was made specifically to do what imgur doesn't allow and I started using it. Since it is not on the list I picked other.  But it's nickpic.

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I use Post Image almost exclusively. Their desktop app has made my life so much easier. From Screenshots to uploads, I am blown away. The details of the software are difficult to explain without doing some reading, but I've been using them for over a  year now and I can't imagine life without the software.

 

Sorry to come off as a salesman, I'm just greatly pleased by it 

 

10/10 would recommend. 

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