I know it's not VW-related chat, but it's going to have an impact on how a lot of us add photos to our threads.

Photobucket have changed their Ts and Cs as of 28th June and will only allow you to link to your photos from in forum posts if you buy a $400/year account!

Well they can f**k right off. If the fee was more reasonable I'd buy an account as it's an OK service. Introducing the change retrospectively to photos already uploaded is a ***** trick and they can stick it.

Opinions on the best alternatives to photobucket that work if you link from the forum?

Details:-

http://photobucket.com/terms#ixzz4l0tVAHC3

Abbreviated below:-

Photobucket.com Terms of Use

Last revised June 28, 2017

...

Types of Accounts, Pricing and Limits

...

Free account : ...2 GB of free storage ... does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting.
Ad-free Account : ... ability to use the Site without seeing any third party banner advertisements ...
Plus Account : ... more storage, bandwidth, 3rd party image hosting, image linking and/or other services as outlined below.

>Plus 50 Plan: 52 GB of Storage for $59.99 / Year. The Plus 50 Plan does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting.
>Plus 100 Plan: 102 GB of Storage for $99.99 / Year. The Plus 100 Plan allows for unlimited image linking but does not allow 3rd party image hosting.
>Plus 500 Plan: 500 GB of Storage and unlimited bandwidth for $399.99 / Year. The Plus 500 Plan allows for unlimited image linking and unlimited 3rd party image hosting.

And from their email...

Photobucket defines 3rd party hosting as the action of embedding an image or photo on to another website.

I just use FB albums or direct upload to the forum.

That certainly is an excessive charge!

Just upload to the forum.

I use the samba.com as my VW photo hosting site ( https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album ... uthor=vwed). From this I can link to any forum easily.
Also this means that the pictures stay on the samba forever and can be a useful resource for other VW owners.

Didn't know I could upload direct to SSVC. Is that new and is there a limit?

I upload to The Samba a lot, but it means uploading to more than one location. With Photobucket I was able to configure folders so additions uploaded automatically, then I could just paste the link in to any forum. It also meant one location for all my photos, not just Splitty pictures.

I also collect tuning fork watches and some of the watch forums don't let you host pics on their servers because of the cost of server space, which is why I started using Photobucket in the first place. I guess all those photo links are dead now too.

Maybe Facebook is the answer. I've never been a big fan of FB not least because there were storys about them claiming copyright over your images, but from Googling, it seems that was exaggerated.

I think Photobucket assume free users will be happy with a cloud storage/backup function for photos from now on, but having tried to download my own photos back from PB, I won't be wasting my effort. If I want a cloud backup I'll use Dropbox, Amazon, or the like.

Photobucket stinks, all my resto threads GONE!!!!!!!! They are as bad as them Ransomeware hackers!!!

I've deleted my account.

If they'd applied it to photos uploaded after the new Ts and Cs came in to effect, and the price was sensible, I'd have bought a paid service. As it is, they can stick it.

Worst business move since Gerald Ratner described his products as 'absolute crap'.

Gotta be thread title of the year for sure!
I wouldn't pay 400 a year for little mix to wash my wheel arches out naked every week let alone host a couple of pics.

Really ? Seems to still be working fine for us

Taken yesterday

Hmmmm - seems like its true..... see here:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/3 ... party_pgs/
and here
http://uk.pcmag.com/webcom/90124/news/p ... e-internet

Some people are not going to be happy... look at all the Rides & Projects threads on here that potentially have hundreds of PB hosted pics on them....
some of the comments on the bottom of those linked webpages are quite amusing....

My photos/avatars/signatures are all gone.
Rubbish!

I'm not at all happy about Photobucket doing...... It is certainly going to impact some of the projects, and technical explanations on here.

But times change, and if that includes Photobucket.

I would encourage anyone to use another free web hosting (flikr), or use the SSVC upload feature.

The most important take-away from this, is be organised (and i'm not being a smart****). If you use someone image hosting please please have your photos backed up.

Hosting images on here is easy enough. As this is the only website I put photos on I'll not bother with PB anymore

Perhaps "gone" was a little strong.
I still have all the photos of course but who can be bothered going through all their posts and changing the links?
Im hardly a prolific poster but all my threads are ruined.

In summary;
BUMHOLES!

At least as far as I'm aware even tho muchos closed down years ago the pics are still out there.