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Photobucket stop 3rd party access


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Received email to day stating this

 

 

Some features on your account have been disabled.

 

 

linking-overage.jpg

Your account has been restricted for 3rd party hosting.

 

Don't worry, your photos are safe.

 

In order to restore 3rd Party Hosting,

please upgrade to our Plus 500 Membership.

 



 

 

they updated their T&C on the 27th

this bit relates to fees and 3rd party access

 

Plus 50 plan 52gb storage $9.00 per year no linking and 3rd party hosting

Plus 100 plan 102gb $99.99 p/y no linking and 3rd party hosting

Plus 500 plan 500gb $399.99 p/y unlimited linking and unlimited 3rd party hosting

 

any god sites to use free or reasonable fees

 

Cheers

 

Dickie

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I use Zenfolio. It's been reliable and reasonable for the last eight or so years. I originally got it because it allowed me to link my domain name to the online galleries and save the trouble of maintaining my own photo gallery online. It has been easy to maintain and their gallery themes allow for a lot of customization. Linking is supported and is easy to implement in all manner of forums and social media.

 

https://en.zenfolio.com/zen-plans

 

Galleries: http://galleries.pptphoto.com/galleries

 

If you want, you can use my referral code to get 10% off: NQR-RR4-7QV

It gives me some kind of credit on my next renewal, so if you want to hand it out to a bunch of friends, go for it! ;)

 

 

Dave

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I use Zenfolio. It's been reliable and reasonable for the last eight or so years. I originally got it because it allowed me to link my domain name to the online galleries and save the trouble of maintaining my own photo gallery online. It has been easy to maintain and their gallery themes allow for a lot of customization. Linking is supported and is easy to implement in all manner of forums and social media.

 

https://en.zenfolio.com/zen-plans

 

Galleries: http://galleries.pptphoto.com/galleries

 

If you want, you can use my referral code to get 10% off: NQR-RR4-7QV

It gives me some kind of credit on my next renewal, so if you want to hand it out to a bunch of friends, go for it! ;)

 

 

Dave

 

Cheers Dave,

 

Thanks for the links. On a different tangent, on one of your previous post about this site you were spot on, no bickering, trolling etc. just good advice .

 

Dickie

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I received a similar email. I've been using photobucket for years with no problem but apparently today, with no advance notice whatsoever, my photos are now all locked up. I have several reviews here which suddenly have no photos.

 

I was actually considering upgrading my photobucket account because I'm working on a new review and was running out of space, but going from free to $400 per year seems a bit much.

 

I'm not very technologically savvy. Sorry to sound dumb, but is there any way to just upload my photos directly into my posts, so that I don't have to worry about a third party website suddenly changing their terms and wiping out all my hard work in writing and posting these reviews?

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I received a similar email. I've been using photobucket for years with no problem but apparently today, with no advance notice whatsoever, my photos are now all locked up. I have several reviews here which suddenly have no photos.

 

I was actually considering upgrading my photobucket account because I'm working on a new review and was running out of space, but going from free to $400 per year seems a bit much.

 

I'm not very technologically savvy. Sorry to sound dumb, but is there any way to just upload my photos directly into my posts, so that I don't have to worry about a third party website suddenly changing their terms and wiping out all my hard work in writing and posting these reviews?

 

If you are uploading to these forums, the limits are very severe. Basically, you can upload the equivalent of a large thumbnail. The Tapatalk app lets you upload an image from your phone or tablet to their server and it automatically links to your post. I don't know what the limits are.

 

As I mentioned above, I use Zenfolio which allows me unlimited storage and direct linking. It does cost me $140 annually, but that includes linking to my website to use the online galleries as my site's photo album. It also allows for direct sales if I ever get off my butt and start that project. There are lower cost plans as well.

 

Dave

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photobucket locked me last night

 

I posted pictures yesterday fine and today they are locked

 

btw pb says your pictures are safe, but I could not access the ones I linked yesterday.

 

I just went thru and copied back anything I wanted that might have not been saved on my machine. very unhappy with pb right now. $400 a year if you want to link your pictures. I think NOT.

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photobucket locked me last night

 

I posted pictures yesterday fine and today they are locked

 

btw pb says your pictures are safe, but I could not access the ones I linked yesterday.

 

I just went thru and copied back anything I wanted that might have not been saved on my machine. very unhappy with pb right now. $400 a year if you want to link your pictures. I think NOT.

 

 

I posted this morning, but now they are in the black hole. Of course, I still have the 'originals', but I post a lot, not just here. So what else is free and easy to use? I do have a Flickr account, but not quite as user friendly as PB was. So, any free suggestions, or is this the way of the future? EM

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I got the same lockout message from Photobucket. No warning at all. Needless to say, it's quite distressing to have so much work blacked out. I'd pay a reasonable fee to them, but $400 per year is absurd. I think they are being very foolish with that pricing.

 

I am going to email them and see what they say.

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All of your pictures are still on photobucket, and you can still access them, you just can't link to them. To see your photos log into your photobucket site.

 

Real simple explanation for this. Each hot link uses band width that photobucket has to pay for, clearly they are not getting enough ad clicks and to recoup their costs they are making people who hot link to photbucket bear the costs. Lots of sites do this and you can expect more to do it in the future.

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For $400 per year you can get your own VPS and do anything you want.

 

Many ISP's give you free space with your account that never gets used. Doesn't hurt to look into that.

 

I personally post using unused space on servers I run from my companies.

 

framer

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For $400 per year you can get your own VPS and do anything you want.

 

Many ISP's give you free space with your account that never gets used. Doesn't hurt to look into that.

 

I personally post using unused space on servers I run from my companies.

 

framer

 

Good point. My domain at pptphoto.com allows me unlimited storage and bandwidth for $10.99/month. I'm in the (long, drawn out) process of testing photo album/gallery software, but to be honest, my Zenfolio account I link to for my galleries is awfully convenient for about $11/month and until they put some restriction on bandwidth, my maintain-it-yourself software search may be very long indeed. The personal domain option is good for those familiar with (or willing to learn) managing a web presence from the ground up, but for many, it would not be convenient.

 

Dave

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I have 2 photobucket accounts. I can still link with the account which has the Plus 20 plan. It's $10 a year. I'm trying to figure out how to get that with the first free account I had, I don't see it listed when I sign in. I think $10 a year is very reasonable, $60 and up? Not quite so much. I don't upload all my photos to it, just the ones I want to post here.

 

Vic

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I've done three reviews here on CC and have used Photobucket as my host site. I have seen this thread and now there is another one on the "Ask A Cruise Question" that is under the "Cruise Discussion" boards here on CC. I have not received the "lockout" email from Photobucket, yet, and when I just checked my CC reviews, my pictures are still showing.

 

I hope this doesn't sound dumb, but does anyone know if this is the policy moving forward in which we will not be able to link pictures in future posts/reviews and will pictures used prior to this change still show up? Or does this mean ALL pictures, past and future, will eventually be "locked out" unless we choose to pay the $400 ransom (charge for the Gold Plan)?

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I've done three reviews here on CC and have used Photobucket as my host site. I have seen this thread and now there is another one on the "Ask A Cruise Question" that is under the "Cruise Discussion" boards here on CC. I have not received the "lockout" email from Photobucket, yet, and when I just checked my CC reviews, my pictures are still showing.

 

I hope this doesn't sound dumb, but does anyone know if this is the policy moving forward in which we will not be able to link pictures in future posts/reviews and will pictures used prior to this change still show up? Or does this mean ALL pictures, past and future, will eventually be "locked out" unless we choose to pay the $400 ransom (charge for the Gold Plan)?

 

Not dumb at all. It is likely that your account hasn't been reset as yet. PB has 100 million users and billions of images on their servers. Resetting permissions on that many users is a switch-flip but the process has to go down a list and progressively process the command one user at a time. Granted it may do 100/sec but even that would take over a week. Keep checking your reviews and unless the gods of data are smiling brightly on you, they will follow everyone else's into the PhotoBucket black hole.

 

Dave

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Hmm, I haven't been locked out yet, but reading the new Terms of Service, I see the only one with 3rd party hosting is the $400/year option. Well, we'll see how long the images stay up. I wonder how many people will pay their price.

 

It's too bad, I liked Photobucket a lot more after I paid for the ad-free service. It makes me wonder if they got sued for some image with a 3rd party hosting agreement.

 

Vic

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Hmm, I haven't been locked out yet, but reading the new Terms of Service, I see the only one with 3rd party hosting is the $400/year option. Well, we'll see how long the images stay up. I wonder how many people will pay their price.

 

It's too bad, I liked Photobucket a lot more after I paid for the ad-free service. It makes me wonder if they got sued for some image with a 3rd party hosting agreement.

 

Vic

 

More likely some bean counter added a slide to the monthly powerpoint for the presentation to the execs that showed downward ad revenue and upward bandwidth expenditure and one of them said, "Hey, remember what that guy with the Epi-Pen company did....?"

 

 

Dave

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Unfortunately, if those of us who use Photobucket decide to go with a different service, there is nothing we can do about the old photos we have posted here. Cruise critic doesn't allow you to go in and edit old posts, so you can't update them with new photo links.

 

I agree that I wouldn't mind paying some price, but to go from free to $400 overnight with no warning does feel like extortion. :mad:

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Not dumb at all. It is likely that your account hasn't been reset as yet. PB has 100 million users and billions of images on their servers. Resetting permissions on that many users is a switch-flip but the process has to go down a list and progressively process the command one user at a time. Granted it may do 100/sec but even that would take over a week. Keep checking your reviews and unless the gods of data are smiling brightly on you, they will follow everyone else's into the PhotoBucket black hole.

 

Dave

 

Thank you Dave. That's what I thought, but wasn't sure. That's really a shame because the reviews take a lot of time and I know that many people used Photobucket for their pictures and I personally enjoyed reading the reviews by others, so helpful in so many ways. I do have Shutterfly, so from now on I'll use them. I just hope they don't start doing what Photobucket is doing in the future.

 

 

It does sound a bit like a "Ramsonware" effect?. Those prices are not justified and other storage websites would be welcoming new members including me.

 

My thoughts exactly!!! I put a lot of time into the reviews I did and I know many others have as well. I know one thing, I'm certainly not paying the ransom just to keep the pictures in the review. After I used up the free 2GB storage, I paid the lowest fee for more storage either on my 2nd or 3rd review. But as soon as I get notice that I've been "locked out" and those pictures disappear, then I will cancel the Photobucket account since I won't be needing it anymore.

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All my photos are backed up to my computer and an external drive. I would need the $400 service if I put them all on PB. Maybe Cruise Critic could take the opportunity to upgrade their service... as long as it's not $400!

 

I've never been able to figure out how to link Shutterfly. Do you need to set up a share site and then do it from there?

 

Never mind! It couldn't be easier, make the image full size, copy, then paste into the body of the post. I'm glad Shutterfly upgraded last month.

enhance

 

Vic

Edited by Victress2007
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I read about Photobucket the other day on the section"Ask A Cruise Question". I have used photobucket for quite a few years. So far I have not gotten the e-mail nor have I been locked out.

But -- not taking any chances -- I signed up for Shutterfly yesterday and put a few pictures on them and then tried it out on this site -- seems easy.

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