Notice to all Photobucket Users

[GiveMeABreak]

Agree Mike - it's almost a prerequisite to use Ad-Blockers on their site - but Ad-blockers aside, you would think with the prolific number of adverts, they would not need to take the action they have to increase revenues.

They've just milked their last cash cow over this I suspect. It has been likened by many to the recent WannaCry Ransomware attacks, as a lot of people feel they are now being held to ransom over their pictures. Pay $400 a year before we unlock your pictures! The action has overnight ruined many forums. Users are saying they have not had notification from Photobucket about this action. In many cases, this is because of all the ads and spam from the Photobucket site, resulting in any and all emails from them ending up in the junk folders!

If you can get into the site (as there is a mad scramble of people downloading all their work), you can go to your library, select a folder / album if you have created these and then choose 'download'. It is glitchy, but it should create a zip file that you can download of all your main photos. Probably a good idea to at least create a backup off of their site - just in case the mass exodus anticipated is the straw that breaks the Camel's back!

[myglaren]

I'm fairly sure I have all the ones that matter somewhere - on DVD and there are dozens of them
Unfortunately a lot were hosted on Malcolm's behalf and they will likely be lost and gone forever.

[GiveMeABreak]

This is what is so annoying Steve - as with a little notice, we could of recreated the pictures from your DVD source files and hosted them on our Forum - but without being able to visually id the right picture for the right section now, that's not an option. Let's hope we can circumvent the situation.

[myglaren]

Just remembered that a lot of Malcolm's photos are in a Dropbox account.
Which may not be much better.

[RichardW]

All seems a bit odd - almost like they have been hacked! I wondered if they were owned by someone else, and were trying to get rid of the business by effectively closing it down, but it seems not.

You should still be able to get the pictures off of there once the traffic calms down - no suggestion (yet!) that they are going to restrict access to free accounts.

[GiveMeABreak]

No you'll still have basic free accounts but little point in using them as a free storage service crammed full of adverts. You may as well just store them on your PC with storage prices so cheap.

[elma]

I wonder if anyone, particularly an American, will make a legal case against them. As I see it people are suffering a loss because of a breach of contract and that's prime territory for a law suite. Add to that no notice was given prsonally and I think the Yanks may have a field day with photobucket soon.

[GiveMeABreak]

I've read that this is already happening as they say the Photobucket staff don't understand their own system or that a forum only embeds a link to the photo, not the photo itself, so legally is not a third party host of the image!

[elma]

Photobuckets extra large can of worms.
Im pleased I have offline copies of all mine that I care about. I think I do anyway, better check.

[GiveMeABreak]

I'm only pulling off the ones I really need, most of mine are the odd diagram and part so I don't personally need those.

Might look at a few other providers, but not essential for me now that the Forum has the facility. I suppose it depends if you have a need to share images and like me don't do Facebook or Twitter.

[myglaren]

I have some on Flickr! and Google Images but not many, most are on PB.
I did have a heap on Imgur and Imgeshack but they went the way of PB too.
My Flickr! account (pro) was with BT - ISP - but then when BT and Yahoo were to part ways (still ongoing) I had to shift the account to my other Yahoo account and lost the pro status and lots of space - and some images I suspect.
It is currently full of eldest son's wedding photos, which may have to change soon.
Flickr! went through a few phases of being almost unworkable but never as bad as PB has been recently.

[xantia_v6]

Cloudinary seem to be OK, and worked OK for offsite linking last time I tried.

[GiveMeABreak]

Regarding 'IMGUR', I've just picked this up from their TOS - so looks like this is a no-no too:

Imgur terms of service also prohibit third party hosting:

"Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network. If you do – and we will be the judge – or if you do anything illegal, in addition to any other legal rights we may have, we will ban you along with the site you're hotlinking from, delete all your images, report you to the authorities if necessary, and prevent you from viewing any images hosted on Imgur.com. We mean it."

Well, you can't say that they are not being direct can you?!

[GiveMeABreak]

I've just fallen asleep reading Yahoo's TOS for a Flickr A/C, but seems reasonable for occasional use. I don't know which took the longest - digesting their TOS or going through the million and 1 privacy settings!

Basically, I switched everything to 'mind your own business' and locked it down until I've tested things out. It's incredible the tracking that is there - all the Geo location info from your camera and photos - completely intrusive IMO - it's GCHQs idea of Heaven. Just shows how you have to spend the time to lock a profile down. I'll see how it pans out, but have taken due note of the 'Delete Flickr Account' button location.

...Didn't need that long - completely unusable for me and failed miserably on the mobile, even with the app. Now consigned with the rest of anything Yahoo I got rid of 10 years ago.

[CitroJim]

I've never read the flickr TOS Marc, I just signed up and started using it...

Mine's wide-open... I'm happy for the whole world and beyond to see my pictures

I challenge anyone to wade through my albums and not stifle many yawns