Third-Party Hosting

For years I used Photobucket for things like inserting images in forum posts. I can't do that anymore unless I pay them $40 a month. Asking customers to pay for a service is reasonable; the price they're asking is not.

Can anyone recommend an image hosting service that allows third-party hosting for a reasonable price like $5 a month?

Jeanette Isabelle

Many internet service providers offer (or USED to) a free personal website for each account. They don't give you a ton of disk space, but if you trim your photos down to a reasonable size for internet posts (not full size as they come out of your camera) then you can put a lot of them up on your personal website. I never used the personal websites that my ISP's have provided, so I don't know how easy they are to use. But if your ISP provides that, and you can figure out how to work it, that would be a free way of hosting your pictures.

These free ISP-hosted websites are not meant for heavy-duty hosting. I think your ISP would get mad if you posted pictures that were getting ten's of thousands of hits per hour. But that shouldn't be the case for pictures on a forum like ETS.

Another alternative might be the third party hosting site postimg.org. I have never used that site, but in a different forum that I frequent someone asked a question just like yours in this post we're reading now, and that website was suggested.

Also, note that maybe forum websites (but not ETS unfortunately) provide a way for you to upload your pictures directly to the forum website in your post, negating the need for a third party hosting service. Look for something in the thread creation dialog box about "uploading" something, rather than "linking" something.

I'm testing an image hosting service. Let me know if the picture is visible.



Jeanette Isabelle

Looks good.

Dropbox.com is free.

First the disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Photobucket. I'm receiving no benefit from posting this. This is for those who have used Photobucket in the past and have stopped using it due to unreasonably expensive plans.

After a year of unreasonable prices, Photobucket finally has plans that the rest of us can afford. If you had a Photobucket account and no longer use it due to its high cost, look at the new plans they unveiled today.

Jeanette Isabelle

Doesn´t matter what they want,I´m not going to pay one cent. I have moved to using Postimage hosting.

On forums that don't self-host uploaded images, I just usually don't post images any more. Most of the forums I visit self-host, except ETS doesn't.

If I need to get an image or some other files to/from a fellow forum member, I coordinate with them via PM, and then give them an (expiring) link to my personal cloud service for upload/download. I host this cloud service myself on my own servers (using NextCloud and Docker container software). I don't use commercial services like Dropbox due to security/privacy concerns.

I've used Photobucket for years. Moving the photos from Photobucket to a free service is not the problem. Editing every forum post containing a Photobucket link would be a nightmare.

Jeanette Isabelle

No need to do that. Every member of any forum on the net knows about the Photobucket money grab, and what those dead links seen in posts mean. It's a constant reminder to folks, "Don't ever use Photobucket" because this is what you'll get when they grab for your wallet (and they most likely will, again).

I use Imgur, it's free and pretty user friendly.

I used that service when Photobucket only had expensive plans. I still had the problem I mentioned in my previous post: Editing every forum post containing a Photobucket link would be a nightmare.

Jeanette Isabelle

Yeah, I was just speaking in general terms. I'm glad PB relented and added more affordable options.

Protesting does not work. Boycotting a company until they comply with the demands of their customers has proven its self to work.

It is as I said in the opening post: "Asking customers to pay for a service is reasonable; the price they're asking is not."

Jeanette Isabelle

There’s probably no need to move all the images from PB to another host. Old images go to old posts and threads that are rarely viewed, so the “reasonable” fee is still a waste. But this from someone who is drifting from a smartphone to a flip-phone.

It's not protesting. It's learning. "Well, I'll certainly never use THAT company again!"

Protesting would imply somehow making the company aware of your actions. Marching in front of their headquarters with signs, hosting an online petition, etc. Just walking away silently and avoiding similar problems in the future is learning from experience. Photobucket may be left scratching their heads wondering why their customers left (I'm sure they know exactly why, no head scratching required). But that's of no concern to the ex-customers who simply walked away in search of a better solution. No protest. Just an exodus.

Some customers may have protested. And they are the ones who are now thinking they won the battle, are using Photobucket again, paying fees this time. Everybody gets to make their own choice. Paying Photobucket after what they did to their customers may be the best choice for some people. But most simply walked away. The "dead image" links you see all over the internet now attest to that.

So that's why we are not driving Edsels or Studebakers anymore! I always wondered....

They are still there and they are viewed by anyone looking at old posts. I have fanfiction I've written going back eleven years. In some of them, I included images.

I went back to a forum where I often wrote and I can see every Photobucket image, even ones belonging to a person who has been dead six years. Either Photobucket reactivated everyone's account for no reason or, as a paid customer, I can see everybody's Photobucket image.


When I lived in Dallas, the capability of texting was handy. Now that I no longer text, I miss having a phone with tactile buttons.

Jeanette Isabelle

Protesting comes in many forms. A person can protest to vent without the attempt of making a change.

Anyhow, you're right. If Photobucket had affordable plans from the start, they would not have permanently driven off customers. Not only that, they lost an entire year of sales from customers who would have bought one of their affordable plans but not the $400 commercial plan.

Jeanette Isabelle

Did you get rid of your Model T?

I had to. It had transmission problems.

Jeanette Isabelle