Photobucket free account image linking revoked

Today I noticed that all my photos that I have linked to DYXUM are no longer available. I use a photobucket free account. In the place of the image there is a logo reading "Please update your account to allow 3rd party hosting! For important info please go to www.photobucket.com/P500".

If you go to "www.photobucket.com/P500" your computer will be infected with cookies of videogames sites. No information at all will be provided at that site. Don't ever go there!

So I tried to find out what has happened: First I thought that I have outrun my storage limit. But I have used only about 20% of the 2 GB of free storage.

Then I saw that photobucket had just changed its terms of use - on June 28, 2017: Image linking and third party hosting for free accounts is no longer supported. These options are now only available for members who subscribe to the Plus500 plan which will cost you $399.99 a year (and which gives you 500 GB storage space).

I have use photobucket now for a couple of years with no problem. And I know that freebies can be risky. But this is an attempt at blackmail IMO.

I apologize - it will take some time for me to reconstruct the links of my photos using a different host service (and it's probable that I won't be able to do this for all my linked photos). I am willing to pay a reasonable fee for it (I have one of the old Flickr pro accounts, but the set of images in that account is a different one, so I won't use that).

I am thankful for any suggestions what to do in such a case - particularly what host service would be recommendable!

Just came back from the Biennale in Venice and wanted to upload and show some images. Sorry, this will have to wait a bit.

What a nightmare!
Maybe you should priotitise the repair of your pic in the voting thread impressive machinery?

Fred_S wrote: What a nightmare! Maybe you should priotitise the repair of your pic in the voting thread impressive machinery?

Good thinking Fred!

Harald, you probably can't edit these posts anymore (one is locked, the other one is in my voting post). So once you have a new link send it to me by PM and I'll make the repairs for you.

I've been using photobucket for years. I guess it's time for a switch. I moved some of my pictures to joomeo to try it out. I modified my last five posts to link to the new pictures. If this works out, joomeo (the paid version) seems reasonably priced and is pretty easy to use. Are there better alternatives to joomeo? Thanks for any help.

And thanks for the heads up Harald. Although I did receive an email from photobucket (when I checked). It would have been a reasonable thing for photobucket to restore third party linking to their basic paid account, but they are trying to make money, I suppose, by getting people to pay $400 U.S. yearly for the privilege. A little stiff for the non professional who just wants to share images for enjoyment.

Edited by Almazar80 - 30 June 2017 at 11:10

If they're wanting to make more money, charging 400 bucks a year for the service isn't the way to go about it. I can't see that company surviving for much longer.

It's 400$ to upgrade your account? Rough!!

I used photobucket a while ago but went to zenfolio (not free) when I was annoyed at the adds on photobucket.
I think zenfolio plans got more expensive over the years for new users though.

I think that you can use many services for uploading photos, even dropbox & the likes.

Cats (11) on Page 11.
Here on Dyxum Themed Views under Cats.
I can still see the image here. Just checked my Photobucket Free account, it shows 13% storage used


Edited by Oltamin - 30 June 2017 at 15:31