I think I was one of the lucky ones.....been using it myself for a number of years, then one day all the photos I had posted through it went away, and were replaced by their icons..... and I found they wanted stupid money (to the tune of $400 per year) to be able to post photos to forums. NOT! Many people's photos got "locked" and they couldn't even download them from Photobucket....essentially, Photobucket is holding their photos hostage and demanding the $400 ransom!

Anyway, I was lucky enough to get all mine downloaded onto my desktop, and after searching for alternatives (FREE ONES), it's pretty limited. But I did find these two....

Postimage.org

imgbb.com

There are differences in each to learn versus photobucket, and I'm currently using Postimage..... but either will work. At least both are free.....at least for now. <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Gary

I use several professional photo and video hosting sites for my current photography and video work.

For the photography tasks that you used for your knife making work I would recommend Dropbox. I have used Dropbox for years and like all of the features that they offer for my work.

A Dropbox Basic account is free and includes 2 GB of space. You can download free apps to access Dropbox from your computer and mobile device. You can start with a free account and upgrade to a paid account later if you need more storage space.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.

Once again, I guess I am too independent minded to use any sites like this for forum posting and the like, anything you put on somebody else’s site can potentially become their property, and not yours; this is even the case with discussion forums. I always figured that I have space, that I have full control over, where my webpage is hosted that I can upload to and link to for my images. If you have a website that you control, simply download the free FTP software called Filezilla and create a folder at your websites Public HTML directory, e.g. www.joescusomknives.com/myphotos and keep the photos you want to share there, or better yet create a gallery page on your site that shares from the same folder so that it is not just private space taking up storage on the server but an active part of your page.

If your website is old school then this is a piece of cake, but you have to be able to create the folders and do the FTP. A Wordpress based page provides an interface that allows you to edit your page without knowing anything about HTML coding but it may be trickier to get it to share the gallery photos.

Two pieces of software that I cannot recommend enough are Filezilla for uploading and Coffeecup for HTML work, the latter has both beginner, drop and drag type, interfaces as well as advanced modes for coding that allowed me to learn basic HTML just by using it. Back around 1998 I downloaded a free trial of Coffeecup not knowing anything about HTML and within the one month trial period had built an entire website, so I felt the right thing to do was to buy the software, I never regretted it. For well over ten years whenever a new part to the software suite was released I was sent my link for my free upgrade, no other software I have ever worked with was this reasonable about upgrades.

I'm not sure why lots of folks bad mouth Photo bucket so much. As soon as they start talking about prices, the conversation always goes up to the highest amount, which offers 500 GB storage!

I can not find the prices on it right now, but they have four levels of storage pricing.

The "Plus 50" account offers 50 GB of storage for $59.99/year.

I have the "Plus 20" account - which would be much less $$ - that offers 20 GB storage. It might cost me $30.00/year?

I just checked and I have 3049 photos in my storage.

I have used just over 1% of my storage and I have been on PB for longer than I can recall. 10 years?

Being a paid member I go straight to my photos on login and am ad free.

I will continue to use Photo Bucket until I have a problem.

Where the issue lies with Photobucket is the fact that for YEARS they have had a Free tier/membership. "Third Party Hosting" was the draw, in that it allowed for photos to be hosted (stored) on Photobucket, and then with a few simple clicks, any photo hosted there could be posted within various forums.

A few weeks ago Photobucket pulled a "fast one".... quietly, and with any notification to those who had "free memberships", they eliminated "Third Party Hosting", UNLESS you pay them $399 per year. The reason you've not seen any differences is because as someone who had a paid membership before the changes took place, you are "grandfathered" in. I must have caught it right away, and was able to download all my photos and go with a different service. Those who didn't catch it early were not so lucky. Photobucket blocked anyone with a free membership from downloading their own photos, unless individuals pay the $399.... in other words, they are holding peoples' photos for ransom.

I see it just as if you or I agreed to build a knife for a donation to a good cause, then told the client they'd have to pay you $1K if they wanted the knife. That wouldn't go over too well would it?

I certainly have every photo on Photo Bucket on file in my own computer storage. I had to have it on file to upload it in the first place. You mean others don't?

But I understand - that's a bit tacky on their part.

Why can a person not purchase one of the lower storage amount? That seems weird.

A lot of folks don't keep the files on their home machine(s)..... that's part of the idea behind the online storage. Concerning the "lower storage amounts", when Photobucket made the change, there is no option to purchase anything other than the $399 per year package IF you were on the free plan previously...... they plugged all the loopholes in their own favor and basically left a lot of people in the position of being extorted to pay the $399 to get access to their photos.

Personally, I shy away from any internet service that charges a monthly fee, and in order to get signed up, you have to input a credit card.....just too much risk for me. In the past I did it, and ended up with them charging the card multiple times in the same month, and then my credit card info was stolen, and a BUNCH of charges were racked up on it. Besides, I simply refuse to pay for something, when there are free alternatives out ther

More directly to the Photobucket thing, it's nothing short of underhanded in my view, so they will never get anything from me again.

I'm inclined to agree. That's extortion.

I noticed my photos were no longer on various forums/threads and found out about photobucket's new policy. After reading this thread, I decided to head to that site to download my pics, just in case I was missing some of them. After logging in, I couldn't see any of my pictures. I can click "library", but none of the pictures show up at all. I also clicked their little banner for the new policy just to see what all it said. Karl, you may double check what your membership level is. I noticed a little blurb in there that makes it sound like those who had a pre-existing paid account will get to keep the 3rd party hosting to forums, but only until the end of 2018. I'm guessing then those folks will have to upgrade? Really not certain and I don't want to put words in their mouth, just figured I'd post it here, just in case. This was on their site:

3. What users are affected by the changes to our 3rd Party Hosting

policies?

Moving forward, new and legacy free account users will NOT have third party

hosting available.

If you were a Plus Account subscriber in good standing as of June 1, 2017,

you will continue to have all the privileges you have enjoyed including 3rd

Party Hosting until December 31, 2018 as long as you maintain your

subscription.

Non Plus 500 Account subscribers that purchased after June 1, 2017 will not

have access to 3rd Party Hosting.

Hopefully I'll be able to get to my pictures at some point...

Jeremy