So long Photobucket

bykfixer

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Tonight I got an email saying my share ability from photobucket was diasbled until I upgraded. Well my first thought was ransomware.

Later I read a post saying my pix were gone. But I could see them. Whut-thuh?!?...
Later I saw a "upgrade your account" icon where pix had been. Alright, cool I'll give them their little $4/month since numerous how to's and lots of info has been shared here and my favorite car site. The photos helped tell the story or showed details.

They want $39.95/month or $399.95/ year to share pictures with 3rd parties.

I sincerely appologize to this community but I'm not going to pay $40/mth or $400/yr to share photos. As I get a chance I will replace some photos. Threads like "restore vintage flashlights" depend on them and once I figure out how to replace them I will.

Sorry.
 

Ozythemandias

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Photobucket is about as much of a relic as the flashlights you treasure :)

Check Imgur, I greatly prefer it.
 

Johnnyh

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Highway robbery! Might not be "ransomware" per se but it is corporate sponsorship of it! Don't apologize, who could be expected to shell out $40 per month? If you or anyone here finds a service to use, I will dump photobucket in a heartbeat just based on this! I'm going to start researching...
 

Modernflame

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Photobucket is congested with advertising traffic anyway. Too slow. I won't be uploading anything else now that I know about the fee structure.
 

bykfixer

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Highway robbery! Might not be "ransomware" per se but it is corporate sponsorship of it! Don't apologize, who could be expected to shell out $40 per month? If you or anyone here finds a service to use, I will dump photobucket in a heartbeat just based on this! I'm going to start researching...

Lots, n lots, n lots of peoples photos are now being held hostage. I just looked at a few epic threads and...
Gone!! Photos are now replaced with a banner stating they have to upgrade.
(Edit: where those icons are you can double click on a mobile or right click to see them at the pb site itself so it aint like they are gone... just not visible on the post. End edit)
(Edit 2; in their infinite wisdom the right click/double click thing is now blocked with a ad. End edit)
Unbelievable.

Tiny Pic is cool but...
They are owned by photobucket.
 
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feedramp

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May 29, 2017
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Heads-Up if you use Photobucket

If you use Photobucket, images in your posts may look like this:

Capture_zpszl7uress.jpg


Don't know why this started happening, but noticed it in:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?273724-Surefire-P60-fitment-in-Solarforce-L2
 
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markr6

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Re: Heads-Up if you use Photobucket

I heard something about them charging something like $399/year!

This happened to me with Dropbox, but at least they gave me months worth of warning.

Regardless, this TOTALLY SCREWS forums. Given the Surefire P60 example above, Kestrel's photos that were there for 7+ years are now gone. No way to go back and edit it with an updated link if they were even rehosted elsewhere. Well, being an Admin maybe he could edit :) But that's besides the point.
 
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richbuff

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I absolutely despise most photo hosting and file sharing sites. The trick is to find one that is not a bottom feeder.
 

nbp

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Great, first Imageshack and now Photobucket. Pretty soon every pic I've ever posted on this site will be a broken link. Huge thumbsdown. Most likely whatever free service we all switch to next will go this route before long too. Can't be the only one not making money!
 

bykfixer

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So many threads on so many forums have been destroyed... :(

That's why I was so upset. The information highway is now littered with potholes. I'm ok with some of my work being altered. I just feel bad that so many hobbyists work has been obliterated. I've always admired that with just about any question you have on 'how to' somebody somewhere has taken the time out of their schedule to write down instructions for the use by the rest of us. Sadly too many of us relied on image hosting sites to chronicle a lot of the details.

Now that you-tube rules it's just a matter of time there too ....
Stay tuned folks because this is just the beginning.

The thing that struck me is that hardly anybody is talking about it (yet).
 

FRITZHID

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I've always been against image hosting over direct posting. Hopefully it will become affordable for everyone to just pay images directly to the forums rather than needing a hosting site.
 

Modernflame

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View attachment 5838View attachment 5839

I'm not a computer guy, but I recently noticed the option to add photos directly from the computer, without the agency of the third party photo site. However, I can't get them oriented correctly and they don't display inline. Does anyone know why we can't just copy and paste photos here like an email?
 

LiftdT4R

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There is a little bit of a workaround when viewing old threads here and elsewhere.

You can always right click on the image and hit open in new tab. The image will display albeit with Photobuckets ads all around it.

I've been using the bucket since 2006 and I had many articles on Toyota and International truck repairs as well as old 80s 2 smoker Yamahas. Shame that this will be difficult to navigate as well as tons and tons of other info out there too. Best we can hope for is that Photobucket reverses course.
 

noboneshotdog

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Are you still able to retrieve your photos or are they all held captive by Photobucket?

If they are held captive I would probably consider paying for the first month getting your photos back then canceling.
 

bykfixer

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Are you still able to retrieve your photos or are they all held captive by Photobucket?

If they are held captive I would probably consider paying for the first month getting your photos back then canceling.

Your "folders" are still intact at photobucket like always. It's just they now have blocked a few million links to the 'img' attachments at forums.

What they were after Lift'd is for folks to click on stuff that directed traffic to their ad riddled site. But folks posting everything in a manner that did not lead to traffic back to them. The right click thing you cite plays right into that ploy. It's nice to have that option, which after you told me that option was available I restored my account. Otherwise after 48 hours (after cancelling my account) those pictures would be gone completely. For now folks can at least view them albeit with ads galore all flashing about and pop-ups interupting your work flow.

I'm exploring other options but when reading the fine print I see many state (paraphrasing) if you use links that do not direct traffic back to them (as in advertisers do not see uptick in sales from advertizing at those sites) they may ban you or block your links.

It's all about ad dollars, google analytics and crawlers snooping about. A closed site like CPF stops the flow. In part that is one reason we deal with those log jams. Snoopers and crawlers are like sand in the desert these days.

When you go to open type sites that show ads for stuff you shopped for at Sears or Amazon they are part of the flow. I've seen some of my photos from photobucket img links in google searches that I had posted at those type of forums. They were largely 'logo' related where crawlers were used to show pix of clothing items I had posted. Honda apparel I posted could be seen in image searches in google. (I thwarted them by reversing the photos thereby reversing logos so crawlers got confused, deleting the former photobucket link and replacing it with the reversed one). Sites like CPF block the crawlers. If you go to an open site for example and post an image of a SureFire'd logo'd item chances are good you will see your photo in google image searches for SureFire logos.

So when you click on something here and it takes a while to load, please bare in mind you are in a private little oasis in the world of crawler laden internet desert. Take the time waiting to imagine all of your privacy is intact as the millions of bits of data are surrounded by a protective wall that is under constant assault.

Maybe photobucket blocking the pix has done us a favor. If folks stop using photobucket to post images, perhaps less crawlers are trying to break into our little utopia.
 
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peter yetman

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You can always right click on the image and hit open in new tab. The image will display albeit with Photobuckets ads all around it.

On my Mac if I Control Click on the PB box and select View Image, it shows the image as normal on the PB site. Then when I go back to the CPF thread it shows as normal too, Bizarre!
P
 

PhotonWrangler

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I seem to be doing OK with Flickr. This service is owned by Yahoo, which is now owned by Verizon. Who knows if Verizon will try to monetize it the way Photobucket did, although I have to see that Photobucket seems just greedy.
 
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