The all inclusive PhotoBucket issues,problems and solutions

[FullRaceMerc]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

I have no dog in the fight, but 3700 pictures over 14 years(yours is just an example. I know you kept the copies) is certainly worth 400 bucks in ransom.
You can say ethics and principles all you like, but if they aren't worth 400 bucks they weren't worth having in the first place.

Realize what happened, spend 400 bucks, salvage all but your pride... And carry on.

I am vaguely, slightly, ever so unassuredly, remembering this cost being announced almost exactly a year ago.
I could be wwaaayy wrong and it could have been another hosting site.

That is $400 dollars per year. Every year. From everyone who wants to continue using their service that was free yesterday. And continues to be free from other sources.

It seems like photobucket saw how lucrative the ransomware industry was, & realized they were in the prime location to lead the way.

Think of all the forums with all the info shared over many years that have been trashed by this move. Whoever said that PB broke the internet was right. I hope PB wakes up & corrects this tomorrow, or crashes & burns once the good people recover what they can.

 

[Syberia]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

I have no dog in the fight, but 3700 pictures over 14 years(yours is just an example. I know you kept the copies) is certainly worth 400 bucks in ransom.
You can say ethics and principles all you like, but if they aren't worth 400 bucks they weren't worth having in the first place.

Realize what happened, spend 400 bucks, salvage all but your pride... And carry on.

I am vaguely, slightly, ever so unassuredly, remembering this cost being announced almost exactly a year ago.
I could be wwaaayy wrong and it could have been another hosting site.

That's $400 per year, or they'll just disappear again. It's not worth it, it's insane.

EDIT: Ninja'd

 

[2oolhound]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

I have no dog in the fight, but 3700 pictures over 14 years(yours is just an example. I know you kept the copies) is certainly worth 400 bucks in ransom.
You can say ethics and principles all you like, but if they aren't worth 400 bucks they weren't worth having in the first place.

Realize what happened, spend 400 bucks, salvage all but your pride... And carry on.

I am vaguely, slightly, ever so unassuredly, remembering this cost being announced almost exactly a year ago.
I could be wwaaayy wrong and it could have been another hosting site.

But if everyone does that they win. If we all take the loss they go down. This is bait and switch in it's lowest form. They've supplied 3rd party links for us to click on all along and now the big switch. And like others have suggested, who's to say after they collect all the ransom they don't just fold up and walk away next year leaving everyone hi and dry again but for good. I'd rather they walk away broke. I do keep all my hi res original files but I can't see myself replacing 10 years of linked images anytime soon.

 

[mrobins297aaa]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

just a test

 

[mrobins297aaa]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

hey I just posted that from my pb free account and it worked........what gives?

 

[rayra]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

I have no dog in the fight, but 3700 pictures over 14 years(yours is just an example. I know you kept the copies) is certainly worth 400 bucks in ransom.
You can say ethics and principles all you like, but if they aren't worth 400 bucks they weren't worth having in the first place.

Realize what happened, spend 400 bucks, salvage all but your pride... And carry on.

I am vaguely, slightly, ever so unassuredly, remembering this cost being announced almost exactly a year ago.
I could be wwaaayy wrong and it could have been another hosting site.

Nope. Screw all that. I will not accede to their highway robbery. If they'd asked me years ago to pay - AND had some competent technical people so their site was not a buggy pile of **** with frequent downtime - I'd have paid it. After years of offering, solicitig 'free image hosting' I am not now going to pay $400 - in essence back rent - on a no-notice heist.
Photobucket's leadship and technicians were either too stupid and short-sighted to realize the impact of what they chose to do, or they knew and didn't care. I will not reward that behaviour with any form of payment.

Not only did they do this, but they foolishly chose the eve of a major holiday weekend to initiate it. Their IT people are plainly morons.

You know who does this kind of ****? A generation weened on MyFaceChat, where everything is transitory and history doesn't matter. Brought up in systems where thought is imposed and dissenters are crushed. They CHOSE to break the image hosting of the mast majority of their userbase, thereby breaking years of history across the internet. It's Orwellian. Think of the millions of manhours put into the information and educational materials they've just wrecked. And they DEMAND $400 per user as reward for doing so?

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Nope. Screw all that. I will not accede to their highway robbery. If they'd asked me years ago to pay - AND had some competent technical people so their site was not a buggy pile of **** with frequent downtime - I'd have paid it. After years of offering, solicitig 'free image hosting' I am not now going to pay $400 - in essence back rent - on a no-notice heist.
Photobucket's leadship and technicians were either too stupid and short-sighted to realize the impact of what they chose to do, or they knew and didn't care. I will not reward that behaviour with any form of payment.

Not only did they do this, but they foolishly chose the eve of a major holiday weekend to initiate it. Their IT people are plainly morons.

You know who does this kind of ****? A generation weened on MyFaceChat, where everything is transitory and history doesn't matter. Brought up in systems where thought is imposed and dissenters are crushed. They CHOSE to break the image hosting of the mast majority of their userbase, thereby breaking years of history across the internet. It's Orwellian. Think of the millions of manhours put into the information and educational materials they've just wrecked. And they DEMAND $400 per user as reward for doing so?

I agree.
Just say NO to blackmail.

 

[FullRaceMerc]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Point completely missed.
Pay 400,recover your pictures in full resolution, transfer to another site.

Four hundred ONCE.

Or, you saved a copy on something that belonged to you.

Once is still a crime. Can they even get them in full res if they pay the bandits? Even if they can, or if they have saved copies, it's the placement in all the existing threads on all the forums that is the big loss.

Selfish, evil people trying to grab a quick buck. No consideration for all the work & info that has been destroyed by this action. I hope not one single user pays them a dime, the people involved get fired, & PB apologizes & fixes this mess.

 

[Ditch]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

for 400.00 do they mail you some KY jelly?

 

[2oolhound]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Paying them is just signifying to other hosting sites that people are willing to take it up the hind end. It sets a president for others.

From their website

23 million monthly unique users in the U.S. X $400 = ka-ching ka-ching 9200 million!

http://photobucket.com/about


Here are their partners in crime to boycott, specially if they're starting up "Free Hosting Sites" - (be ready to read 50 pages of squint print)

"Photobucket is backed by News Corp., Steamboat Ventures, Oak Investments Partners, Voyager Capital, and Covera Ventures, and has offices in Denver, CO and San Francisco, CA."

 

[Outbound]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

My pics were still working. I only had 300 or so images, and most were from old for sale ads etc on forums. I pulled the pictures I wanted to keep off, and nuked the rest along with my account. Figured I should do that before those wankers locked me out like some people are seeing happen.

I'm switching over to postimage.org. It's free and it works for posting to forums. I don't really post long step by step stuff, and I store my important pics on an external harddrive.

This is from postimage:

 

[MushCreek]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

I didn't even know that you could upload pics to this site; many forums I frequent need a third party host. After the PB debacle, I'm done. I'm no longer going to use any photo sites, free or otherwise. I have hundreds of threads all over various forums that are now dead, at least as far as pics go. I built my own house, and have threads that took years to finish- all defunct now.

 

[Outlander]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

I am on a couple of forums that do not have their own hosting of images. Luckily, every second post is not like here where the population says



The free image hosting industry is really messing with us and the GJ won't stand for it

 

[pepi]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

That photo bucket thing is killing the forums..... making lots of folks post useless.

Greg

 

[MushCreek]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

I downloaded all my pics from my PB account and deleted the account. I back up my pics, but saved then anyhow, in case some got lost along the way.

 

[MushCreek]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

I downloaded all my pics from PB, and closed the account. I save all my pics, but there may have been a few on there from the early days that I don't have backed up.

 

[t100]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

They can eat a bag of dicks.

 

[EOC_Jason]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

I have to agree with the crowd about uploading the files locally to whatever site you are on if at all possible (I understand sometimes it doesn't work, especially with phones).

Biggest reason is Photobucket is not the first site over the years to do this. Also many go out of business or get merged and URLs are no longer valid. So eventually older threads that had useful pics now become useless... And when those people aren't active any more and will never update their broken pics, those images are lost forever...

Bandwidth cost for server hosting is almost a non-issue these days. Likewise it's nice to have the forum auto-resize pictures to your screen rather than someone direct link some ungodly huge image that is like 6500px wide... Then people start quoting that post with ungodly large pictures so things go down the hole real quick...

 

[EOC_Jason]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

hey I just posted that from my pb free account and it worked........what gives?

Interesting, I can see it too... Maybe they forgot to update one of their servers or they are still in the process of rolling out their changes?

 

[ducksface]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

Whatever you change to, please make sure it doesn't post those GIANT pictures that squashes the text to about 2 point font because it is trying to out your stupidly big picture on the screen.

Saving Ryan money?
Become an Alliance member and it isn't an issue.
That's a pretty easy 50 dollar a year solution to host your pictures.
Someone will need to ask Ryan if that's viable. It might be overwhelming.

 

[Outbound]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

Don't forget postimage is another free alternative

 

[ihateminimumwage]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Interesting, I can see it too... Maybe they forgot to update one of their servers or they are still in the process of rolling out their changes?

Must be. Mine's still working fine.

I'm switching over to postimage.org. It's free and it works for posting to forums. I don't really post long step by step stuff, and I store my important pics on an external harddrive.

Just signed up with them and tried it out. Wish I would've done that sooner. Super simple layout and uploaded fast. Thanks for the reference.

 

[c39er]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

They can eat a bag of dicks.

A bag of Dicks?????
Ummmm Good!

 

[edcantu9]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Is it legal what they are doing?

 

[lakeroadster]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Is it legal what they are doing?

For a paying customer that is following the specifications as set forth in a contract... it's illegal if either party breaks the contract specifications.

For folks getting free photo hosting where no money has exchanged hands... they can do whatever they want.

When it comes to free stuff, you get what you paid for.

 

[PelicanPines]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Is it legal what they are doing?

There is little to stop a company from changing their TOS (terms of service) ... that would/could alter even existing paid customers. Their changes appear to be only to free accounts for the most part.

I'm sure based on the new TOS dated 6/28/2017... it's gonna cost everyone $399 to renew their current paid accounts when they expire.

Photobucket changed hands recently... from what I'm reading... that coincides with the increase in advertising and now the change in TOS...

My guess it's their gamble on getting some to pay the fee... Just because you pay the fee for a year service... doesn't mean they will be around that whole year or any years after that... they could claim bankruptcy and evaporate at any time... leaving everyone without their pictures and without their money.

Just my humble opinion... after discussing with a representative of the NJ Division of Consumer Affairs as we discussed tomorrows BBQ.

 

[FullRaceMerc]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

So you think it's more of a corporate take over sort of thing? Buy up a decent company that has been built over years, sell the assets, & run off with the short term profits. Killing the company while enriching the new shareholders. Except the assets in this case are people with pics who can be milked?

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

Don't forget postimage is another free alternative

Thanks. Will update soon.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

So you think it's more of a corporate take over sort of thing? Buy up a decent company that has been built over years, sell the assets, & run off with the short term profits. Killing the company while enriching the new shareholders. Except the assets in this case are people with pics who can be milked?

Yep.

 

[PelicanPines]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

So you think it's more of a corporate take over sort of thing? Buy up a decent company that has been built over years, sell the assets, & run off with the short term profits. Killing the company while enriching the new shareholders. Except the assets in this case are people with pics who can be milked?

Yep... yep... and probably before they finish... they will sell the name too.

Somewhere along the way... the customer base will be sold off to a different (newly titled company)... touting a great price etc... to pull people back in.

In the end... the current owners will **** many in for the $400... disperse thousands of servers they no longer need due to cancelled accounts...

 

[Two Speed]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

What I don't understand is why anyone would use a third party host like PB to post pictures to forums like this one which allows you to upload pictures directly to the forum ?? Just about every other automotive and hobby related forum that I visit, probably 50 of them, allows you to upload the pictures right to the forum. That's what I do. No need for anything like PB.

I do the same, the problem lies with forums that have ridiculous size limits imposed on images. So you host the photo elsewhere and link. If you happen to do a lot of picture posting, using the hosting site makes it one step process and suitable for any forum.

Unlike duckface, I like huge pictures because I like looking at the finer details of machinery. Ideally, I prefer when users post a clickable thumbnail (which you could do with photobucket in the early days easily), however, that really goes back to my dialup days that only ended relatively recently. But even on dialup, I would rather have the huge pictures.

Duckface; what browser are you using? I've never encountered a situation where firefox or ie shrink text as a result of a large photo.

Alex.

 

[JCQuick]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

I agree.
Just say NO to blackmail.

That's my plan right now if they would release them for a reasonable amount I would pay $15-25 a year just so I could change all my photos then bale like they did

 

[thool]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Photobucket has become the internet version of Martin Shkreli. Unashamed, blind to common sense and consideration, mortally bankrupt, and driven by greed.

I sincerely hope people get their images back before this stupid mistake of a company goes bankrupt.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

[danski0224]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

This forum actually allows attachments, so why isn't that feature used more often? Attached images would end the problem of nuked threads when the links go bad.

Free photo resizing programs are readily available, and it's easy to make 800x500 images for uploading.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

This image is stored on my FREE Google Gdrive.

Yes, it is a pain in the **** to "insert" it in to your post but here is the method.

After you have uploaded the image (I suggest you make a folder for all the images you want to share), you must change the way the image is shared. Right click on the image name and then click on share. You have 2 choices, share with everyone or share with anyone who has the link.

Now, in you post, click the image icon (mountains) and insert http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=FILEID where FILEID is the very long file name that appears AFTER https://drive.google.com/file/d/ when you are sharing your Google Drive image.

I am sorry if I am am not explaining this well, but it is the best I can do.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

Another (Hint: "quote" this post and you will see exactly how I did it.)

Yes, all the stuff fits in that tools box !

 

[Skin]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Attachments are thumbnails until clicked, only open one at a time, and are only viewable when logged in.

 

[OccupantRJ]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

I use my iphone for my forum pics, and also have an ipad I use to access the forums. What I like about this method is that I take pics in the shop with my phone, and can post from there, or come into the house later and the pics are already on my ipad, and also have been uploaded automatically to the cloud. For every pic, I have 3 copies available. I can also place these pics in albums on the forum, and then I have 4 copies. I can post pics from either of my devices, and also post pics from my album to a GJ post.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

Re: Photobucket alternatives...

This image is stored on my FREE Google Gdrive.

Yes, it is a pain in the **** to "insert" it in to your post but here is the method.

After you have uploaded the image (I suggest you make a folder for all the images you want to share), you must change the way the image is shared. Right click on the image name and then click on share. You have 2 choices, share with everyone or share with anyone who has the link.

Now, in you post, click the image icon (mountains) and insert http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=FILEID where FILEID is the very long file name that appears AFTER https://drive.google.com/file/d/ when you are sharing your Google Drive image.

I am sorry if I am am not explaining this well, but it is the best I can do.

Your image doesn't show...

Tommy

 

[esmith2039]

Re: Photobucket Just Screwed Me Real Hard

Wow I've had them since.. well can't remember! Just deleted my account. Their ads were getting annoying anyways. Most forums do have the load local option now.