Photobucket has gone dirty!

[RatCav]

Photobucket in all their wisdom have decided to now charge if you want link pictures on forums. You will notice my signature now has a stupid image that tells me I have to pay to reveal it.

I suggest using something else unless you want to pay the 100's of dollars to get it working how it used to, or attach it to the post and use the site hosting facility.

[stretch]

I have a photo hosting website if you want to use the for signs etc mate.

[RatCav]

Cheers for the offer buddy. Imgur and such like are fine .. the issue is the thousands of posts I have made over the years are now all ruined as the links no longer work unless I pay. The only other way is to migrate all the images over to another site and then go through all the threads and posts and edit them .. of which some I cannot do as I don't have rights to on those forums. That is the biggest ball ache I am not prepared to do. I am going to back up my pictures locally and delete my account. I imagine others will do the same. I wouldn't be surprised if other sites develop migration tools that will allow you to mirror your Photobucket account.

It is tantamount to blackmail. Companies and all sorts are complaining about it as they have found their corporate websites, and other online based services are all affected. There was no warning or anything. They made it chargeable and then released the notification and prices. I hope people sue them for loss of earnings as no fair warning was given.

[RatCav]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40492668

[RatCav]

I will add that the move to a paid service is less of an issue compared to the lack of warning. I can see Forums like this being hit badly as (like me) the time it would take to repair broken threads is beyond thinking and also people will just won't bother.

[stretch]

Yeah the amount they want to charge is shockingone of the reasons i've always hosted my own pictures as I always have control over them. Other sites could probably do a migration but all the links would still be dead as they would be photobucket/something.jpg plus when they then have all your pics whats to stop them doing the same?

[RatCav]

Sites like Google Pictures (Picasa) can fund it from other enterprises so less of an issue for them. Photobucket has become an ad bloated site. They don't get revenue elsewhere so it is understandable. All others of it's ilk will soon shift that way as well. Might just get my own domain with hosting service.

[stretch]

Get your own domain then drop me a message for hosting.

[RatCav]

Will look into it ... cheers

[Furryroo]

i was pretty shocked when this happened too, its not like their website is jam packed full of intrusive ads, am using dropbox as a temporary solution currently

[RatCav]

People are pretty annoyed at the lack of warning. Hate to think of how many ebay sellers and such use it. Literally overnight everything went wrong. I bet you anything people are paying the money until they update all their websites/listings then go elsewhere .. even if they are also charging out of principle. I would.

[snapper]

Mmm, that's handy. Not. Must be time to delate the Bucket account then.

[snapper]

Not sure what's going on here as having just checked it seems that the photo's I've put up on here aren't affected (yet...) Maybe they haven't got round to hitting them all yet?

[dave1966]

I've cancelled my photobucket account. It's rediculious.

[stretch]

Glad to I never had a pb account always self hosted.

[dave1966]

I'm not that clever to do hosting.

[dave1966]

Imageshack has gone the same as photobucket.

[RatCav]

imgur will delete your account and bar your IP from their servers if they catch you using them for 3rd party hosting.

[dave1966]

It's rediculious.