Photbucket users - you may want to download your photos

[Zeus-cat]

A buddy of mine who is a heavy Photobucket user just had his free account locked. Photobucket wants $399.00 a year to unlock it. Mine is still working, but I do get a message that I need to sign up for a monthly plan. :surprised:

 

[Cabernut]

Hmm Ive recently switched to Flickr because Photobucket was getting slow and hard to use. I could hear my processor fan kick in to high gear when the site loaded

 

[Woody's Workshop]

Technically I don't think that is legal.
Legally I believe they have to give you notice and time to remove your property.
Sounds like their version of Ransom Ware.
"We have your property, you gladly shared for free. If you want it back, pay us. Or we will sell it."
I'm sure the Tech world will be all over this shortly.

 

[tim cubbedge]

I don't use it anymore. Too slow and way too many ads!

 

[scsager]

A buddy of mine who is a heavy Photobucket user just had his free account locked. Photobucket wants $399.00 a year to unlock it. Mine is still working, but I do get a message that I need to sign up for a monthly plan. :surprised:

I have a free account, had it for years - never had an issue. I am curious - how is your friend a "heavy" user with a free account? I thought free accounts were limited to 2gb and limited bandwidth. The $400 subscription is for 500GB of Storage, Unlimited Linking and 3rd Party Hosting.

 

[dhbarr]

Technically I don't think that is legal.
Legally I believe they have to give you notice and time to remove your property.
Sounds like their version of Ransom Ware.
"We have your property, you gladly shared for free. If you want it back, pay us. Or we will sell it."
I'm sure the Tech world will be all over this shortly.

I would be utterly shocked if the Terms of Service for pbucket aren't roughly "all your photos are belong to us ".

 

[Cabernut]

After reading the terms of service, your account will be locked and you will have to become a paid member if you go over your 2GB.

Way too slow for sure. I don't mind ads, but if I have to spend 5 minutes clicking the little X in the corner of a dozen popup ads before I can access one photo, then it's not appealing for me anymore. Flickr is by far a better site.

 

[georgegassaway]

I use Imgur

 

[scsager]

Ok - Ok - I got it now... Photobucket made a HUGE change to the "hotlinking" policy. And yes lots of people are unhappy about it.

Good article at the LINK >> https://petapixel.com/2017/07/01/photobucket-just-broke-billions-photos-embedded-web/

 

[ksaves2]

People need to dump photobucket and walk away. With storage dirt cheap, save 'em at home. That'll likely get 'em to do something else or whither up and blow away. Kurt

 

[Zeus-cat]

I have a free account, had it for years - never had an issue. I am curious - how is your friend a "heavy" user with a free account? I thought free accounts were limited to 2gb and limited bandwidth. The $400 subscription is for 500GB of Storage, Unlimited Linking and 3rd Party Hosting.

He said he had 3,000 photos uploaded to the site. And I'm sure most of them were hotlinked to a forum like this one.

 

[modeltrains]

It is the hundred dollar a year accounts too, https://photobucket.com/terms

Available Plus Account Plans : Photobucket offers the following Plus Account Plans:
o Plus 50 Plan: 52 GB of Storage for $59.99 / Year. The Plus 50 Plan does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting.
o Plus 100 Plan: 102 GB of Storage for $99.99 / Year. The Plus 100 Plan allows for unlimited image linking but does not allow 3rd party image hosting.
o Plus 500 Plan: 500 GB of Storage and unlimited bandwidth for $399.99 / Year. The Plus 500 Plan allows for unlimited image linking and unlimited 3rd party image hosting.

Photobucket Just Broke Billions of Photos Across the Web
Jul 01, 2017
Will Nicholls
https://petapixel.com/2017/07/01/photobucket-just-broke-billions-photos-embedded-web/

It’s not a huge surprise to see a decision like this. Advertising revenues are declining for publishers, and the costs of servers to host 10 billion images are surely incredibly high (especially when requests are made for them from all over the Web). While other free services remain, it seems fairly likely that others will follow suit and start charging for hosting files too.

As for me,
"Storage is 16% full"

 

[Big-Bob]

I'm one of those who just had all their links broken. I had well under 2 GB on there. Fortunately I have most of it still on my computer or flash drives. I would delete images as I uploaded more to prevent exceeding the limit. Looks like I can't use it at all anymore, they have no free account. $399!!!!! They've got to be kidding. I guess I won't be posting any more pictures on any forums that don't host pictures themselves, and most of them don't, they don't have the bandwidth.

 

[Dave A]

I found a solution for my work because I need access to files and photos and such.
Google Drive gives you I believe 15GB or 30GB, free, depending on if it's a personal or business accout.
Because i have so much content for business and all my hobby and racing stuff, I bought 1TB for 9.99 a month. It's a business write off.
G Drive physically syncs ALL of the contents to each PC, on the phone they're links were I can access any file quickly
If the network is down or a PC crashes, the content is on every PC. it syncs everytime you log on.