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Photobucket

Started by JudgeDredd, June 07, 2017, 04:04:19 AM

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JudgeDredd

How did you post the image? If you post it with the URL, then the link can take you to Photobucket. If you strip the URL out, it's just the image.

I've seldom bothered to strip the URL out - because they provide it - and I imagined they wanted people to click the image and go to their website because it's advertising.
Alba gu' brath

JudgeDredd

Well I logged into Photobucket and there's a banner at the top telling me my terms have been updated.

Looking through the terms, there's mention of a "free account" of 2GB. There's an ad free account for $2.50 a month and then there's paid options giving 50GB, 100GB or 500GB a year at $50, $100 and $400.

There's absolutely no mention of the 10GB storage plan I bought.

It is possible my purchase of 10GB didn't make it a paid account and was still free but with additional storage. However, when I was on 2GB and when I was on 10GB, I was able to post links to my images (so called 3rd Party Hosting)before today.

My account shows 2GB + 8GB "Reward" - I am certain I paid for my account to be upgraded to 10GB.

Oh well. I'll leave it. I was sick to death of the advertising and I've got to be honest with you - a company that provides a service whereby

  • they make that service extremely sub par by filling it with adverts that you can't get rid of until they've played for a period
  • they make your experience worse by opening another browser window to show you a popup advert
does not deserve any money.

Moving on.
Alba gu' brath

JudgeDredd

Well I was going to prove that they had removed "3rd Party Hosting" but the image below with the link in shows just as the one without the URL

Here's an image with the URL in place


And here it is without the URL in place


Perhaps it'll disappear over a period? I don't know why that image is suddenly showing. Perhaps they have a scanner going around looking for images and then replacing the URL...I don't know. All I know is all my images have gone!

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=15913.0

Alba gu' brath

BanzaiCat

JD - let me preface by saying I hate ads. I know, I know - who likes 'em? The only ads I like are the ads around here (in all honesty), because I relate to them - board games and such. I have zero problems with that. But the stupid ads on Photobucket, or say YouTube or elsewhere, which advertise shite right out of left field that I neither know nor care about really piss me off. I get that it's part of the free-use experience, but some are far more obnoxious than others, and Photobucket has become one of the more egregious of the obnoxious sites out there.

I hadn't used Photobucket in a while to host images of my AARs because it had some issues several months back. Someone here recommended tinypic.com, and I've not had any trouble with them at all. It's a little less convenient than Photobucket's drag-and-drop method, but it's really not that big of a deal. I'd recommend that for your use moving forward.

I had gone back to Photobucket once a couple of weeks ago because tinypic was having issues, and man has that site changed in the months I wasn't using it. MUCH more annoying with MANY more ads intruding. I get that since it's a free service, but tinypic isn't nearly as obnoxious as PB is. It seems they've ramped up their intrusiveness to the next level.

JD, if you're using Chrome, try the 'Fair Adblocker' app. It's a free extension and it works VERY well for nuking intrusive ads, especially if you happen upon a clickbait site (which Photobucket is trying very hard to emulate). This app appears in your browser's menu bar to the left of the URL, and shows you at a glance how many ads it's blocking. I just now went and logged in to Photobucket and the app says it's blocked 55 ads on the page immediately after login. Count 'em - fifty-five. :( That's well and truly ridiculous, even for a free site.

I almost always ignore pop-ups; PB still had one that appeared, asking me to sign up, but it's a simple matter to click past it to get to my pics/the upload area. Then again I'm the guy that, when I see an ad coming up on YouTube, I mute it, scroll the page down so I only see the track bar, and can just see the bottom of the 'skip ad' button that appears in the lower right corner. When that appears I click it and I'm past the ad, without having to have seen, heard, or even know what the hell they're trying to sell. I know that sounds stupid but it makes me feel a splinter of glee every time I can do that.

It's gaein be awricht ance the pain has gane awa.'  \m/

JudgeDredd

Thanks for the tips BC.

Yes Photobucket has got VERY bad. It's considerably worse since before I bought their ad block. Even going to view my accoutn details, there were ads left, right and centre, a popup window came up (it took me a few minutes to work out where the soundw as coming from (I was watching a Youtube video and thought it had started playing again istelf) and a video came up right in the middle of the screen and wouldn't let me close it for 5 seconds.

This is an image from my "old" Flickr account...perhaps I'll use that now. Not a single ad in sight!


I'm just really annoyed they took all images in my posts away. That was definitely not tied to me buying their ad- free subscription because I was able to post images prior to buying that.
Alba gu' brath

BanzaiCat

I'd be totally pissed too if they screwed up my library when I was a paying customer!

Which is why I'll never pay for an ad-free service, ever. I have SiriusXM (satellite radio) and am well and truly annoyed that there are several channels that are considered 'premium' and play commercials for ten minutes or so at a time. I'm paying $18 a month to listen to commercial-free content...ugh. Still, it's much better than terrestrial radio here, which is godawful and riddled with stupid ads.

Staggerwing

Quote from: JudgeDredd on June 30, 2017, 07:00:18 AM
How did you post the image? If you post it with the URL, then the link can take you to Photobucket. If you strip the URL out, it's just the image.

I've seldom bothered to strip the URL out - because they provide it - and I imagined they wanted people to click the image and go to their website because it's advertising.


I just went into my 'bucket' or whatever, found the pic I wanted and clicked on it. in the right of the image's own page there is a series of different urls that can be used for different things. I choose the one called 'direct', click on it and then copy it. In my gorgheads post composition window I then click on the monalisa icon and paste the copied bit between the tags.
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Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

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I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
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mirth

"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

BanzaiCat

Screw Photobucket. Use Tinypic. There's plenty of free hosting sites out there, and if Photobucket wants to commit suicide by removing untold users from seeing their ads...whatever.  ::)

mirth

Seems like an incredibly bad move by Photobucket. I'll be moving to a different service.
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

JudgeDredd

#25
Quote from: mirth on July 05, 2017, 11:24:34 AM
Well, well....

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40492668
Thank you. Not going mad then!  :notworthy:



Quote from: JudgeDredd on June 30, 2017, 07:34:29 AM
Well I was going to prove that they had removed "3rd Party Hosting" but the image below with the link in shows just as the one without the URL

Here's an image with the URL in place


And here it is without the URL in place


Perhaps it'll disappear over a period? I don't know why that image is suddenly showing. Perhaps they have a scanner going around looking for images and then replacing the URL...I don't know. All I know is all my images have gone!

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=15913.0


And my images are now gone. Oh well. Point proven.

I used the IMG links. Doesn't make a blind bit of difference. They promoted their service, changed the terms resulting in all my links to images gone.

What I wouldn't have minded - and I wouldn't have been overly harsh on the company - was if they had said they were changing their terms and that images posted before would not be affected - only images after. But what this smacks of is essentially a ransom note. "All your work (be it leisure or business) is gone unless you pay up." I won't be supporting that business model.

I actually cannot believe they can get away with it either. Like I said, saying "Going forward..." fine - but to affect previous stuff - done under a different "contract" must be against some law somewhere.

Goodbye Photobucket.  :2funny: Now you've pissed off your entire portfolio, good luck getting any money staying afloat.
Alba gu' brath

mirth

#26
Too bad they jacked your links like that, JD.

I have a bunch of images on Photobucket as well. So far they are okay.
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

BanzaiCat

A lot of my early AARs were done with PB...I imagine those threads now have the same ransom pics in them.  >:(

JudgeDredd

Ah well. No biggie. They're not getting a dime off me and as soon as I can, I'll be deleting my account. I'll hold out to see if there's a reversal on historical links. If not, I'll delete the account. That way they won't be able to tell advertising companies they've got x account holders.
Alba gu' brath

OJsDad

Whats a good site to use now instead.
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.