Photobucket

Over the last 15 years, I've had two (or is it three?) photo hosting sites go belly up on me. This included the loss of photos but fortunately I had purchased "archive DVDs" of my photos.

PB, which has always been clunky (have you ever tried to order photos on it" Damn near impossible) became unusable last year with the ads and pop-ups. I purchased the ad free upgrade (about $100 IIRC) and that seemed reasonable. Continuing without it was not an option as it took forever to navigate the site.

It seems to be running OK today, as it did post upgrade.

 
BTW, I canceled my Photobucket account on Friday. Unbeknownst to me, all my privacy settings had been changed to permit open access to the public — not my idea of fair play. Ironically, the account won't be closed until 2nd July, which allows PB ample time to pilfer and archive. I have every reason to expect thumbs of my photos to appear in every search engine extant long after they have been deleted from Photobucket. :ANGRY:
 
ebeeby said:
It seems to be running OK today, as it did post upgrade.
Click to expand...
Ebeeby, be sure to read the laurenwayne.com blog article I linked in one of my comments above. Unless you upgraded to the $399.99 Plus500 yearly plan, you will soon be in the same boat as the rest of us.

Chas
 
Just checked and I have plus20. I don't know the difference between linking and 3rd party hosting. But I do see that it's $400/year for 3rd party hosting and $100/year for linking.

As I said, the PB site is slow, clunky, and pretty much sucks. It will be interesting to see where everyone goes to ....
 
I never paid for the add free application on photobucket, so I continued to contend with the millions of pop-ups, movies running in the background, and advertisements. So far my photos have not been taken off of the forum. It's probably just a matter of time. I cannot copy photos off of photobucket any longer and I cannot save photos that I have placed there. It's a good thing that I have back-up copies of everything.

Here is an update on picorator.com. It is an easy website to use and I have not seen any pop-ups or advertisements when I have been in the site. There are a couple of issues that concern me:
1) Apparently if your photo has not been "clicked on" for thirty days the photo is erased. I'm not sure if "clicked on" means that someone has looked at it on the forum, or if someone has to look at it on picorator.com.
2) There does not seem to be any editing capability whatsoever. What you see is what you get. I tried to resize photos on my computer before I placed them in picorator but it doesn't seem to make a big difference.
3) I'm not sure what "3rd Party", open forum, or public access really means, but apparently there is no way to avoid these on this site. I have never paid attention so it is not a big concern of mine. Just Google Pickelhaubes and you can view almost every photo I've ever posted.

I think I'm going to write a couple of posts and use picorator as the photo host and just see what happens.
Has anyone else had an experience with another photo storage site that may prove better?

John :(
 
It has been a long time since I was on my personal photobucket site.
And franckly my dear I don't..... :wink:
Just to say that I don't use any external photo hoste anymore.
I trust on my hard disk and memory stick's.
And on a great deal of the fora I visit.
Most of the fora, WRF for example, do hoste my pic's well.
I ofthen go ther to copy some of them.

I am also on French forum, and generaly use them to poste my pic's here;
with servimg copy paste the url and here is my latest addition. :D
 
Holy cow ,this is the mother of al belgian helmets :(
The rarest of them al a queen elisabeth helmet :bravo:

Jonas
 
If all goes well, I have it by the end of the summer holliday.
I'll open a new post when I got it.
This is the seller's pic.
 
Just went to Photobucket's page, noticed two things; 1) none of my albums would open (although my photos posted to here still appear), 2) That as of June 28th they started a new service policy. No 3rd party hosting unless you pay $399.99. So I guess we all have to start looking for another place to host photos.
I'll post photos of my Lizzy Helmet as soon I find a new host.
 
I agree with Charles . Old saying ; 1 photo is worth 1,000 words
and yes the photos are very important to me .
How many reference books on Military items we collect that
do not have photos have you ever seen ?
I have asked Brian if we ( he ) can come up with a "plan B "
Brian said that would have his son start to check around .
I am on the site almost every day
I noticed a lack of posts in the last couple of weeks .
Maybe it is summer time .
Latest find there was a post there very often.
Right now I think the latest post was June 14 ?
I burned out on Photobucket several months ago.
I fear if another system is not in place
we will drop down to less posts .
P B was free , but now they have us over a barrel.
Steve
 
Ok I just joined Picorator.com for storing pictures and posting to this forum. real easy to join and use.

When selecting pictures to insert on Picklehaubes.com, copy the link under this option:

Forum Code (BBCode

then paste it in your posting here, seams to work ok!

James
 
I read through the Picorator terms of service and privacy terms. It's not for me. Though the IP for the site is in Germany, the company is Russian. After the Photobucket debacle, I don't feel comfortable surrendering personal info to Egor S Pavlikhin in the Russian Federation:

http://picorator.com.outerstats.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've been looking into California based SmugMug.

https://www.smugmug.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chas
 
I hear you Charles, however, when I registered, they asked for my first name and a Password, no other info was asked for not even email?

James
 
I am still playing with picorator.com. There are some concerns, but I find it easier than some of the others. I am unfamiliar with SmugMug, but if it is California based I'm sure they will be looking for money sooner or later.
Picorator has no editing capabilities that I can find so this is an experiment with sizing.
First, a photo I took at 100%:



Then at 50%:



Then at 30%:



I had to resize in "paint" on my computer and then save the resized image. It appears that picorator will accept whatever you save but all editing will have to be done prior to putting it on the site.

Can someone remind me how to attach a thumbnail photo? I used to add an attachment, but I can't see how to do that now.

John :)
 
Hi John:

SmugMug has plans starting at $3.99 per month. This includes one's own customizable website and U.S. customer support. I'm done with "free" plans that offer little or no privacy or security, and can change their terms of use at whim:

Check it out:

https://www.smugmug.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chas
 
I have been reading everyone's posts on this issue, talked to Logan etc. I think obviously, that those of us, who have used Pbucket, are screwed. I was on Pbukt a second ago and only received a notice offering extra storage space for $99.99/yr. However, I am sure they will come for me for me shortly. My very small restoration business is going to take a hit as a result... all of my restoration photos will be gone.
I will talk to the server host company about our site hosting pictures...how much storage and cost$$. However, I like to have Logan with me as he speaks "computerese" and I do not. So I will let members know what happens regarding this. Logan is working full time now and has a Gfriend so we all know how that affects time with Dad. Fortunately he does live here in Barrie so that is a plus.
I agree with Steve, James, the Russians are the greatest hackers in the world and I would absolutely never join in any computer based dealings with them. Buddy, they already have your email and who knows what else, that's why they didn't ask for it. I will check out that CA based company and accept that in the spirit of good old "free capitalism" there will be some extra charges down the line.
Some members, have been wondering,..... why isn't Brian running around trying to solve this, why not immediately contact our site host and get on this to see if photos can't be hosted by this forum?? The answer is simple,......less than 1% of the membership actually donates $$ to cover the costs of this forum. We have a hard corps cadre of members, mostly American, a couple of Canadians and perhaps 3-4 Europeans who actually send funds to help finance this site. Everyone else, just enjoys the "free ride". We have multi millionaires here, who love to show off their fabulous pieces but have never sent a contribution in all the years that they have enjoyed this forum.
One of the oldest phrases in the book of 'How to Become Wealthy" is "count your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves". Henry Ford was raised on that and he did pretty well. It is a well known fact, that the bulk of charitable donations come from the middle class and the poor. Yes, the big boys contribute to a hospital building, so they can get their name on it but what happened before?? It is what it is folks....that is humanity. Those of us who used Photo Bucket are going to take a hit, there is no solution to that. Accept this and get on with the forum and the hobby. If you never post here again, I wish you well. Brian
 
Brian ;
I am sure not a computer person
I just wonder if there is way to post photos
like it is done on Facebook ?
there are only 3 steps there ;
1. scan your photo
2.send to desktop screen
3. attach via title you give the photo

I am just asking ?
I think PB is going after the users as they ( we ) log in
or try to post something new . I think us who stay in limbo
they might leave alone ; saving your restore photos ?
I sure hope that things work out
Steve
 
Thanks Steve...this is yet another "blip" in the passage of life and we both have been through quite a few of those! Obviously, Photobucket is in a financial crunch, the revenues they gained from offering a free service, no longer match with their profit margin business model. So, they are on their way out of the market, they are a sinking ship. Consequently, anyone silly enough to pay their "ransom fee" for photos is equivalent to throwing cash at the hull of the Titanic as it sunk beneath the waves!!
 
I know I can plead guilty to not making a financial contribution to keep the forum running. If there is an excuse for this, it would be that I contribute to several forums and none have asked for financial assistance. One can take things for granted. However, what I have contributed in lieu of money is knowledge and research. I have striven to share the best quality photos I can of rare artifacts, and place them within a historic or personal context. I have devoted countless hundreds of hours to this endeavor. For some time, I have not been as active as I once was (part of the problem was the headache of photobucket), but, as stated previously, I am prepared to contribute to in-house pickelhaubes.com photo hosting. I would rather Brian have the money than any third party.

Quality photos can be well under 100KB if one would just take the time to resize for the web. I once had approximately 1280 on this site, and they amounted to no more than 80MB. At Costco today, I purchased a 256GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $39.95. A server with a 3TB hard drive could most likely handle the task indefinitely. Also, I have been looking at the list of forum members. There are many, many who have never contributed a thing. It might be a good idea to cull the herd and learn who is really here. I can't imagine "J. S. Suckling" is a real person, for example.

Happy to be on board. Happy to help.

Chas
 
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