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Hotlinking Photo Host Choices


Gorby

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It looks like my first images using this method have been up since January, so closing in on a year. At this point I'm more afraid of this .org site shutting down taking the magic code them hah. 

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On 04/12/2019 at 02:30, Shin said:

since January

That's good enough for me. Thanks for letting me know - I've updated the original post to now give Google photos as an option. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Gorby...thanks for all your hard work and research.  I will look into one or more of these as soon as I can find out what my Google password is.  The boss is sleeping right now.

 

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7 minutes ago, Les Moore said:

Gorby...thanks for all your hard work and research.  I will look into one or more of these as soon as I can find out what my Google password is.  The boss is sleeping right now.

No problem Les. I hope you get your photo host problem sorted soon.

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  • 2 weeks later...

That was an excellent piece of work. I'm a Microsoft One Drive user, and the method explained by @Mike in 2016 is now much improved. I could write an updated guide, but that thread is locked. Any interest from the Mods in a rehash from me?

 

(In this context, the confusingly named) Mike

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2 hours ago, Chaotic Mike said:

That was an excellent piece of work. I'm a Microsoft One Drive user, and the method explained by @Mike in 2016 is now much improved. I could write an updated guide, but that thread is locked. Any interest from the Mods in a rehash from me?

 

(In this context, the confusingly named) Mike

Surely... as long as it's not going to disappear like the Google links did/do. :hmmm:

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3 hours ago, Chaotic Mike said:

I could write an updated guide,

That would be very helpful Mike. Would it be possible to send me the updated instructions as a private message, and then I'll update the relevant section.

 

Thanks - Gorby

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On 11/11/2019 at 12:02 PM, Gorby said:

PhotoBucket

https://photobucket.com/

The basic fee is $5.99 per month (£4.61) for up to 2,500 images (25MB)

 

Photobucket aren't particularly well thought of after they held their members photos to ransom in 2017 and demanded $399 per year. I've read that with the basic option, they will deface hosted photos with a huge watermark that hides one tenth of your photo (if you know this incorrect please let me know). They have also started to blur hosted photos if the user exceeds there allocated bandwidth. Personally, I wouldn't trust them to host a coffee morning.

 

 

 

You mean like this (with apologies to the person who posted this originally, elsewhere on Britmodeller):

 

imageproxy-php.jpg

 

I think that's disgusting. Why on earth would anyone even consider Photobucket? I use Postimage.org, and have been quite happy with it.

 

John

 

 

Edited by John Thompson
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spacer.pngThe thing that annoys me is the lack of functionality in the apps. Can't seem to get blogger to work on my phone. Can take the photo, upload it. But can't hotlink, haha. Figured it out

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Flickr has recently announced an increase of their PRO plan, which will now come at around $60 plus tax on a yearly basis. I'm using Flickr Pro and we all got an email announcing they need more money to keep running the service. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, running a photo service is expensive. I don't believe in the "free" hosts out there, sustainability will become an issue at some point. This also goes for hosts with a paid plan, apparently.

 

I've started a conversion to another photo host I recently found which I can recommend. It's called Piwigo, it's an open source photo host which has been around since 2002 but I've only learned of them a short while ago. Their individual plan is around $40 on a yearly basis. I've started using the software and it works fine.

 

The nice thing about Piwigo is that you have 2 options: you can get a (paid) account for their service and use their servers, or you can download their software and install it on your own (hosted) server (providing your host allows enough space and bandwidth and allows running PHP and a mySQL database).

 

Which is what I've done as I already had my own website running. Most people here will probably not know what I'm on about but for the ones who do it may be something to consider. You will basically be running your own local copy of Piwigo on a hosted webserver. Now, I've had to upgrade my hosting plan for this, and it costs a bit more than the $40 Piwigo asks, but I am now quite independent of any photo host and not subject to their whims. 

 

I am currently going through all my threads to replace the Flickr links with my own 😋

 

It takes a bit of work but I do a little at a time, you can do a lot in an hour here and there. 

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Thanks for letting me know about that @JeroenS, I haven't seen this one before – and thanks for mentioning that Flickr is having another price increase. I've spent sometime having a look at Piwigo and it looks good. If I ever decide to go for a paid host, this would probably be the one I would go for. 

 

I'll add Piwigo to the main list and change the Flickr pricing (again) later today.

 

:thumbsup:

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I've been following this thread on & off, and seeing the latest price increase from FlickR to $60pa plus tax, it strikes me that just getting a bit of webspace of your own from one of the many hosts would be much cheaper, although not as pretty and it would need you to use an FTP client, which TBH isn't that bad an experience once you get used to the idea.

 

I had a quick squint on the net, and from a British POV, I found Fasthosts in the UK, who offer a number of packages.  You can get 10GB of storage for £2.50pm (plus VAT, I think?), so you could create a folder structure in your space and load up your pics in much the same way we do here to our BIG server.  You'd be sharing that server with lots of other people, but it would be no worse than your average photo host, who can be really slow at times.  I've got no affiliations with Fasthosts other than I know them and they're a decent company, so by all means don't use them - totally up to you, but here's a link to their packages page to give you a taste of the pricing structure:

 

https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/web-hosting

 

If you can navigate your way round Filezilla (a popular free FTP client) you can do it yourself and save a few bob :yes:

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41 minutes ago, Mike said:

If you can navigate your way round Filezilla (a popular free FTP client) you can do it yourself and save a few bob :yes:

Absolutely. A nice folder structure with pics goes a long way, especially if you don't upload full size photo's. There's not even a need to have some software like Piwigo running if your only goal is to host pictures for the forum (and not organize them into a nice album). 

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Considering how much the cost of almost everything else in the world has gone up, Flicker's rise isn't that much more than it was before. It's still only about $5.00 per month. I'm staying with it for the next while.

 

 

 

Chris

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37 minutes ago, dogsbody said:

Considering how much the cost of almost everything else in the world has gone up, Flicker's rise isn't that much more than it was before. It's still only about $5.00 per month. I'm staying with it for the next while.

At the end of the day I suppose the service they offer is worth more to some than others. My concern is more that when I was a 'pro' member it cost me about £20 annually, and in little over a year that's now nearly tripled after two price rises. Now that Smugmug owns it, I think it would be odd that they would have Flickr undercutting their main site, when they offer a very similar service. That's why I think that more price rises are on the way – particularly as Smugmug has said that Flickr is currently running at a loss. They will want a return on their investment and will obviously be aiming for 'profit' rather than 'breaking even'.

 

It's great if your happy with the price, but if your just looking for a basic photo host, I feel that there are better value options available.

 

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Probably true, but it's better than Boto- eff-it! I also have a free account with Village.Photos, but I like the way Flicker gives you size options and some other editing functions. And how much longer will there be free hosting sites? Especially ones that last for any length of time.

 

 

 

Chris

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On 07/02/2020 at 19:10, dogsbody said:

Probably true, but it's better than Boto- eff-it! I also have a free account with Village.Photos, but I like the way Flicker gives you size options and some other editing functions. And how much longer will there be free hosting sites? Especially ones that last for any length of time.

 

On 08/02/2020 at 08:09, Vinnie said:

I will be sticking with Flickr for now as a) I know how to use it and b) I have thousands of personal photos (holidays etc) stored there.

I must admit it's probably because I instinctively don't trust companies. Obviously the more photo hosts that go under, or price their own members out of being able to continue their membership, the more picture-less threads will appear. I hope the big price hikes don't appear, because it will affect all of us. That's one of the reasons I would like people to give some serious thought to choosing a host and not just go with the easiest option.

Not to say that you have gone for the easiest option – I was very happy paying my Flickr fee for many years, it's just that the price increase wasn't good value to me. If you can afford it and are happy to continue paying – great.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My head hurts.

 

Never realised what a bloody minefield this photohosting malarkey was. 😧

 

I think the moral of the story here is don’t upload photos.

 

Don’t use websites.

 

Switch off the internet for good and let’s all go back to paper.

 

Sorted.

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Always keep in mind the aphorism "there's no such thing as a free lunch". While there are a number of free sites out there, I doubt any of them are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

Take a look at this from the Village.Photos T&Cs

 

Quote

You grant to Village.Photos a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, adapt, publish, translate and distribute your user content in any existing or future media. You also grant to Village.Photos the right to sub-license these rights, and the right to bring an action for infringement of these rights.

Basically you are giving away your photos to be used as they like. You may not care, and that's fine - but I do strongly recommend to anyone using a hosting service to actually read the T&Cs (I know its tough, as modelers instructions are there to be ignored). Taken to the extreme the above terms mean that technically you could end up being sued by a sub-licensor for posting your own image somewhere! For example, it may preclude being able to use the image in a magazine review.

 

Cheers,

 

Colin

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Hosting your own via a hosting company is starting to look a bit more tempting with the shenanigans that the hosting companies are up to.... providing you can cope with the slightly more technical and non-hand-holding way that works.  Heck, good friends could even take out a cheap hosting package as a group and cut down their costs accordingly, and not let anyone else take their copyright away from them and profit from their photos. :hmmm:

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2 hours ago, Gordon J said:

Switch off the internet for good and let’s all go back to paper.

Britmodeller by post might take up a little too much time in the day.

 

46 minutes ago, ckw said:

Take a look at this from the Village.Photos T&Cs

To be honest, Village Photos is one of the few that I didn't read the T&C for, so thanks for pointing that out. There are a few others that reserve the right to use your photos as well, but they often try to hide the fact by using virtually impenetrable legalese.

 

18 minutes ago, Mike said:

Heck, good friends could even take out a cheap hosting package as a group and cut down their costs accordingly, and not let anyone else take their copyright away from them and profit from their photos. :hmmm:

You offerin?

Perhaps you could do a 'Britmodeller Pro' membership which includes photo-hosting. I'd be very tempted.

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