Help/Support ► Image Hosting sites. Trying to help everyone in this case.

[maryadavies]

I noticed that one of our members had the extortion pic from Photobucket recently. Ugh, gross! I'd been using them for years for my sig pics and stuff. Luckily I'd temp moved my stuff for another site, I'm planning on moving to Imgur and BG (BlueGartr has a hosting thing, but I wouldn't recommend them unless you got a thick skin; that board is CRAWLING with trolls, and you have to post to use them.) since I effin' do not want to deal with this nonsense if it hits me. I can't afford that anyway!

Since I kept a list of pic hosting sites for a FAQ I ran for RPGamer's forums (which are now closed), I thought I'd share it here for those who may need it. You may notice 'bucket is not on there, I refuse to send any traffic their way unless they apologize. I'm also in the process of grabbing all my pics so I can host them somewhere else; you be nasty to your customers, you don't get my business, Photobucket.
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Here's the big list!
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Anyway as I said in the beginning, no one deserves a extortion pic on their sig from some company that wants to rip you off. And if you guys find any more sites like this, let me know..and free is the bomb here. ^^

 

[Magnus]

Imgur is the best.

What do you mean by "extortion pic" though? Something similar to what happened with Imageshack, where they all of a sudden decided to ask their users for money in order to keep using their services and to not delete their images?

 

[maryadavies]

It was a pic that basically said, "PAY 500 bucks or you can't hotlink to us anymore!" Here's the BBC news article on this. They basically started that policy for free accounts with NO FREAKING WARNING. That's what's gotten a lot of people peeved.

It hit someone on here. I forget the username but he was peeeved to the max. I'm slowly getting my files off 'Bucket now and moving them to Imgur, once I finish I'm closing my 'Bucket account for good. Just because of this. I think they have shot themselves in the foot with this though.

 

[moonstar_xo]

I was actually looking for some new photo sharing sites to use, so this is super helpful. Thanks!

I actually had no idea about the new policy on Photobucket though until reading this. I just forgot my username/password to my account and wanted a new place to put photos lol

 

[maryadavies]

Yeah, I didn't know until I saw that ugly pic on that guy's sig, then went hunting. *blows raspberry at Photobucket*

Oh and my friend from bg mentioned another one that works; unfortunately it's run by Photobucket, but they haven't done anything bad to it yet. So up it goes.

 

[DarkGrey Heroine]

I would like to add that Google Drive is always reliable when it comes to large image files, like in... over 50 MB, over 100 MB, over 200 MB, and such. Those working or experimenting with graphic design and large scale quality prints will know.

 

[maryadavies]

Thanks DarkGrey! I didn't know that, I'll add that to the list, both here and on that FAQ. The more options the better. I had to google stuff to find out how to get the pic link however; so that might be a pain.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

This topic deserves to be pinned. A lot of users like myself were only really aware of Photobucket as their sole source for image hosting, so having this thread available can really help out the new guys in the forum. Thanks a bunch for this.

 

[maryadavies]

Maybe we can talk to a mod about that; I just felt in light of Photobucket's swarmy tactics lately (Why didn't they do more of a announcement? they're just asking to get sued since this is messing up people who sell stuff too!) I should take this off the FAQ I do for RPGamer's message board and put it up here to help everyone. I mean, I had been using 'bucket myself since 2008ish, so this caught me with my pants down too.

As of today btw, I'm on Imgur; I think I edited back in all the pics that were on Photobucket, tho I may of missed a few here and there. (Mostly really old stuff) and I fixed the guestbooks on my pages as well, as well as my lj (that had hotlinked backgrounds). And my 'bucket is now scheduled for deletion; it'll be gone in 48 hours. I think that takes care of it, since I got everything back and said stuff will now be on my backup HDD. THAT many pics just took forever to get back.

 

[DarkGrey Heroine]

Another thing to be added, I think, might be deviantArt sta.sh ( Sta.sh ). If you have a dA account, you got 2 GB free to store stuff in your sta.sh
I used it for years, still have my signature pic and such in there in a folder. Ah, right, you can upload all kinds of things, keep them organized in neat folders, and even those folders can contain other folders, only drag & drop things together. To me it's easy and neat enough, and also for sharing the pictures as links, the sta.sh links are quickly accessible and short, like these ones: sta.sh/06c9gto6m1b ---> DarkGreyHeroine's Sta.sh or for folders: sta.sh/21rf914r9f38 ----> DarkGreyHeroine's Sta.sh

 

[maryadavies]

Before I do Dark; Can you get a link that'd be say, easy to embed as a pic on there? I usually try to test every option myself (mainly so I can figure out the cons), and since the original list is meant for people looking for places to put their sig pics/avatars so they can use them, I'd rather be sure that you can use the pics..well, as pics on a webpage that isn't DeviantArt. ^^ I don't think it's a good idea for me to get a DA since well, I kinda suck at graphic design to be frank. I wouldn't have anything to publish.

If you can (even if you have to publish it to DA to do it) I may recommend it for anyone who makes signature pics b/c well, it's DeviantArt, basically.

 

[DarkGrey Heroine]

Oh but sta.sh is completely anonymous, one doesn't need to post anything on their dA for it, just creating an account is sufficient (and then screw the rules, it can be an empty account lol). Sta.sh content is always private unless someone got a link to the file inside
but hmmm there isn't a quick embed link sharing copy-place as there is a quick link sharing copy-place, so in that case it's not as practical as other options indeed.

 

[maryadavies]

Then it's more for people that do fanart/are publishing on DA anyway since I think if you publish, you can sorta..get a link. I also thought of one more option as well which might be better for that, OneDrive. Anyone who has Windows 10 has them anyway. ^^

I'll do the one-image test with that and see how clumsy it is to get a link, then I'll add both St.ash and that. ^^

[Edit] Well, it works, but nasty long link and they are prolly NOT good for sigs. I prolly will ignore them for that reason. But st.ash might work if you publish, I checked with google, so that might be good for sig makers. ^^

[Second Edit] Thank you Master Spockanort for stickying this! I'll keep it up to date, and yeah, if anyone knows of any more, let me know. Preference is for those you can use as a sig hoster (aka. be able to direct link to your pics in some fashion) since, well, that's what the original list IS. Gotta have somewhere to stash those where you can use them on somewhere like this!

 

[Noir]

This is incredibly ridiculous. $399 annual subscription? No fucking thank you.

Thanks for this thread. Makes it incredibly easier to find some more reliable places to source images.

 

[maryadavies]

You're welcome, Noir~! I figured this was a good time to bring it out after what Photobucket did. That fee's stupid; they can go punt.

 

[Deleted member 36435]

this entire post could've been summed up by saying

"use imgur.com for everything" and sidenote: it does not require an account and yes it does allow pornography

 

[maryadavies]

*swat* I didn't know that but it seemed you needed to make a a account. Also I check the rules. They do say "no illegal material, like child porn"; I"ll clarify that.

The only thing it doesn't allow is pics for selling stuff :/ which is a problem for me since I DO occasionally sell stuff on Etsy and Ebay and Amazon. I'm still hunting for a good place for those. That, I might need to pay for since the top one is Amazon's hosting service, btw. I've considered getting Prime a few times since I have a Fire stick and I order tons of stuff off Amazon (mostly games). I'll have to see if I can afford that..

 

[Deleted member 36435]

they don't allow revenge porn or child porn which are vastly different than regular pornography

and they do allow you to host things that you're selling?

 

[Magnus]

Of course you can use Imgur to host pictures of things that you're selling. How would they know? They could be pictures of your purchases for all they know.

 

[maryadavies]

Well, new hoster on the list. Just added Flickr; I hadn't noticed them before since in the old days, they didn't allow hotlinking. What a change in a few years; now they do since Yahoo bought them. Good for you, Yahoo.