Nothing to see here anymore

[double_dutchess]

Without any warning, Photobucket has removed third party hosting from their free package. All images linked from Photobucket have been replaced with a dummy image, and the only way to make them visible again is to upgrade to a paid account.

Third party hosting is the only reason I (and I assume most people) had been using Photobucket in the first place. But there's no way I'm going to give in to their blackmail. I'll go look for an alternative instead. (I don't even mind if it's paid, as long as they don't pull any dirty tricks like this and unlike Photobucket, have some actual respect for their users.) And then I'll have to move all my stuff there and relink. Nice job for the summer holidays! NOT.

Clearly it is going to take more than a little while until my icons and artwork will be visible again. This also holds for all the things I've posted to communities such as seasonal_spuffy, noel_of_spike, sb_fag_ends, summer_of_giles and nekid_spike. Sorry about that.

In the mean time, suggestions for better hosting services are welcome.

Comments

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

My images have been showing up with no problem but according to their new policy, that will only be until December 2018. Why did they stop your 3rd party hosting before 2018? Or am I mis understanding the whole thing and my images will disappear any day now?

[thenewbuzwuzz.livejournal.com]

Apparently some people like Imgur.com. I haven't used it myself.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm in the same boat. And, like you, I'm not giving in to paying $400.00 to put my photos back and I doubt many people just have $400.00 lying around.

[rbfvid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, seeing a lot of those nasty dummy images on old icon posts lately :(

Some image hostings that allow image hotlinking:
https://cubeupload.com/
https://imgur.com/
https://vgy.me/

DevianArt also allows image hotlinking, but it's not well-suited for icons.

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

I noticed a few friends' icons were that dummy image demanding they switch to a paid account and wondered what was up. I hope you find a host that works for you quickly.

[desdemonaspace]

Damn them.

[snogged.livejournal.com]

I'm frustrated about the change.

[double_dutchess]

Glad to hear your images are still up. I sure hope you will have time until December to find another solution, assuming you won't go for a paid account.

I never read the new policy myself. I noticed last week that people were complaining about their Photobucket images disappearing, but since mine were still up I thought that maybe, for some reason it wouldn't happen to me. Then one week later, poof! my images were gone too :-(

[double_dutchess]

I have seen that mentioned more than once too, I'm going to have to check it out.

[double_dutchess]

Apparently you can pay less if you don't need much storage space, but the way they went about this whole thing makes me not want to pay a single penny to them.

[double_dutchess]

Many thanks for the suggestions; I'll look into them.

[double_dutchess]

Thanks, so do I. It's going to be a huge pain to replace all the old links though.

[double_dutchess]

Yeah, they can go to hell with their paid account.

[double_dutchess]

Same here.

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

After rereading the new policy, I found out it will happen to me too, it just hasn't happened yet.

I have spent most of the weekend downloading my pictures and re loading them on to lj scrapbook and imgur.

If I haven't done all/most of the pic by the time I get the ugly box, I am thinking about paying for PB for one month so I can finish up my transfer but I really don't want to do that.

[rbfvid.livejournal.com]

And here are more links with the short reviews: http://develish1.tumblr.com/post/162818920784/gee-thanks-photobucket

[double_dutchess]

Thanks, I saw that one too! I had been thinking of going with imgur, but after reading this it might not be the best choice.