Photobucket no longer provides free third party image hosting!!!

For several years I have used Photobucket to provide third party image hosting for pictures I post on this forum and other forums.  In other words, when I wanted a picture to appear in a posting, I uploaded the picture to Photobucket, and then inserted Photobucket's IMG code for that picture into the posting.  When the posting is viewed, the picture appears where the IMG code is located. 

Today I went to respond to a thread I had posted in earlier, and discovered that instead of a picture, my prior posting contained a notice from Facebook stating "Please update your account to enable third party hosting."  I went to Photobucket, and discovered that as of June 29, unless you pay $399.99 per year, you don't get third party image hosting from Photobucket.  WTF!!!  I am definitely not going to pay that kind of money for third party image hosting.  This means that all of the posts which I have made over the years no longer contain pictures, and in order to post pictures in the future, I need to find a new webpage which provides third party image hosting.

What webpages are other people using which provide third party image hosting?

Not sure why or how but I only pay $29 a year to Photobucket for the storage upgrade cost (I have thousands of photos on there) and the pics I've shared over the years are still showing up.

Imgur

Not sure why or how but I only pay $29 a year to Photobucket for the storage upgrade cost (I have thousands of photos on there) and the pics I've shared over the years are still showing up.

Maybe they haven't gotten around to you yet, Matt. I liked the ability to nest a pic immediately to the referenced text. I'm not a heavy user and don't post to several forums. So paying $400 to continue third party posting is not a good use of my money. It's unfortunate for anyone tagged who has already spent time and effort to post over the years.

I'll post a bunch of pics at the end of a report (like I have anything to report  ) and keep the $$ in my pocket.

Almost ransom were

Photobucket sucks I posted using photobucket and when i ran out of memory on my account i thought i could delete some old pics to make room for new one's but when doing that i discovered it deletes the pics from my posts. its been a few years now since i quit using them.

So I just figured this out today.  I agree .. photo bucket sux.  Not about to pay that kind of money.

Might use another image host ... I dunno ... lately I've been posting more on FB --- mostly LCKA.  Now this certainly makes this more difficult.

 

Some words of wisdom from my brother-in-law the computer geek and internet prowler:

"The photo message on Facebook is a Photobucket image replacing your photo link with their image.  I don't think Facebook cares.  See here: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/06/30/photobucket-now-charges-399-for-third-party-hosted-images/  I think Photobucket is hurting from bandwidth expenses and this is their 'solution', which may be fatal to them.

I found this site that lists 10 alternatives.   https://www.lifewire.com/free-image-hosting-sites-3486329 You would need to read the terms of each.  For example Image Shack's free account does not allow external links after the 30 day trial expires, and they conveniently did not mention the cost of the premium account.  Walk away.

While researching Google Photos, I discovered that photos from my Google Fi phone are already it their system.  I did not know they were uploading my photos automatically.  I don't want them doing that, so will need to figure out how to make them stop.  I would only want to upload photos if I select them to be uploads.  If you have any kind of Google account active on your phone it may be happening to you also.  Worth checking."

Thanks pmmpete for this heads up!

Oh man, I just came across this!! I've been using photobucket for about 10yrs...to post hundreds of fishing reports on numerous websites...I feel like my own personal history is being erased (or held at ransom). No way I'm paying $399!!!  This is a major bummer. 

Oh man, I just came across this!! I've been using photobucket for about 10yrs...to post hundreds of fishing reports on numerous websites...I feel like my own personal history is being erased (or held at ransom). No way I'm paying $399!!!  This is a major bummer. 

Same here. 

Oh man, I just came across this!! I've been using photobucket for about 10yrs...to post hundreds of fishing reports on numerous websites...I feel like my own personal history is being erased (or held at ransom). No way I'm paying $399!!!  This is a major bummer. 

Same here. 

Bummer guys 😕

If this works, I'll switch the links of some of my old posts to my free Dropbox account...

Test Image.


Test comment.

Dropbox seems to work. Here's the post that describes how to do it...
https://milanaryal.com/hosting-images-with-dropbox-on-your-website/

In Step 1, Option 1 worked for me. Option 2 did not.
In Step 2, simply replace "www.dropbox.com" with "dl.dropboxusercontent.com".

I'm not sure how long this method is going to work. There's no telling when or if Dropbox would block this hosting method altogether. They recently removed the way Public folder works. Can't blame them. Free hosting companies are not obligated to provide free services forever.

ernest