After recommending Photobucket for the last two year, I have switched to ImageShack.
For photos, I always use Flickr!1
While at Flock, I had the opportunity to meet and work with the awesome Photobucket people including Peter Pham, Alex Welch, Luke Swanson. (Later my good friend MJ Kim joined Photobucket). But since they have been acquired by Fox, I hesitate to be outfoxed by Rupert Murdoch.
At the end of March, I was already hesitant to use Photobucket when I found the “Send to my album” button. I then found the announcement from February.
My comment on the blog post got lost in moderation:
“save this image to my album”? Although well intentioned isn’t this feature likely to encourage copyright abuse? I think as a service provider Photobucket has responsibility to help its customers navigate the confusing and frustrating copyright laws.
With this feature, I will have to consider if I still feel comfortable recommending Photobucket.
I wish the Photobucket crew all the best, and thank them for the great service they did provide me.
So,the other day I went looking for an alternative. I found a complete list of the best alternatives; hot linking allowing, no bandwidth limit free image hosting ranked by MakeUseOf.com. ImageShack was their top pick, so I am giving it a try.
Correction, “ImageShack allows each image 100 megabytes of transfer per hour. If an image exceeds this amount, it will be rendered inaccessible.”2
MakeUseOf is an impressive blog of software and web tips that I will come back to!
- 2007-06-07 Update. Disclosure: I am good friends with Cal Henderson, and also worked quite a bit with the Flickr team while with Flock. Currently, I have a free pro account. [↩]
- 2007-06-07 Update. ImageShack FAQ. Thanks Alex! [↩]
ImageShack has a bandwidth limit. I saw more then once that image with the frog and Bandwidth exceeded message on top of it.
Isn’t Flickr a good alternative?
I prefer flickr.com and photobuckett to host my images.
Flickr is only $25/year for the full account.
Ain’t no free lunch.
I really like flickr myself as you can put up massive images. It is worth the upgrade to the PRO account as well for me because of the unlimited uploading and bandwidth! I will look at ImageShak though!
Thanks Alex. Researched and updated.
There is a lot of articles out there that do not mention that including until I corrected it AboutUs’s entry (lots of incomplete, misinformation on that wiki site, surprised that it is first page in Google Search).
Thanks Javier, Ian and Trent. I do have a pro account on Flickr and love it!
That is my first choice for photo hosting. Though it bugs me a little that I am supposed to always provide a link back to Flickr, because seldom it messes with the experience of the image.
I must add back Flickr to my sidebar.
Some friends don’t like when I post screenshots and other non-photo images to Flickr, and I can appreciate why. They are looking for my photos. So I only use Flickr for photos.
Disclosure: I am good friends with Cal Henderson, and also worked quite a bit with the Flickr team while with Flock. Currently, I have a free pro account.
Updated post.
I would not recommend Imageshack, because their founder violates his company’s privacy TOS. Why? Just for fun.
I can’t say I like imagehack because often images disappear from there (which i know cant be copyright violation, say photos i made myself) and there is no way to retrieve them.
Hi Lloud, thanks for mentioning makeuseof, glad you could make use of it.
Interesting. I used Photobucket in the past when I was just needing a place to park a few images. Now I use Flickr and really have no complaints with it. I’m not sure what the advantage to ImageShack or any other service is to Flickr.
Then again, I don’t have copious photos on the service either.
I’ll stick with Photobucket, but I’ll keep your article in mind should problems arise.
“I hesitate to be outfoxed by Rupert Murdoch.”
Yet, you keep a Myspace page, and Myspace is also a Fox Interactive Media company? Please, I think, Foolswisdom that you are playing your audience for fools.
Just TRY keeping track of your links with your new choice of hosting.Good luck with that.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=27393323
I have been hosting my images at http://www.yourhostedimages.com , they have some very good offerings even for their free account, a few which I usually use:
-5 Uploads at a time for the free accounts.
-360 degree spins for auction ads
-You can create a gallery and add images to it but also customize your gallery page before sharing the link with your friends.
-Your pictures do not get displayed in a public gallery on the homepage of the site and are only shared if you want them to be.
-Can Rotate, resize and rotate images right on the site after uploading
@ Ian Monroe
why pay when you can get it for free?
I have been using imageshack for a long time now and i love it. I have never liked photobucket. Once I got a virus from the img i downloaded from photobucket.