Topic: Photo Bucket ends Third Party Hosting

[J_Speegle]

Photo Bucket has just started restricting 3rd party hosting. What does this mean? Any pictures stored on their site and posted on forums like our are no longer visible/linked. Basically they cut the links and now want to be paid to reestablish them. Prior to this they have been a free site for 3rd party posting for maybe a decade 

This article basically covers the issue

https://www.pcmag.com/news/354711/photobucket-breaks-image-links-across-the-internet


What this means is there are now hundreds of links in our threads that no longer work.  For other sites since the opening of the internet this means thousands of pictures and information they contained is now gone across dozens of other forums also.

So right now it appears that I have to pay to even get access to my pictures so I could grab and take them to our site and store them then possibly rebuild each link. A change out of the blue after 14 years. Social media and websites are full of angry people

Appears this affects my picture posting made prior to 2014 so just a heads up if your looking through older threads and wonder what happened

[midlife]

The pricing is just crazy!  One can buy a domain and pay a web hosting site for $100 or less per year rather than pay Photobucket $400/year.

Just another reason not to put data "in the cloud" and free sites.

[ChrisV289]

You should see their Facebook and twitter page blowing up comparing them to WannaCry

[jwc66k]

The pricing is just crazy!  One can buy a domain and pay a web hosting site for $100 or less per year rather than pay Photobucket $400/year.
Just another reason not to put data "in the cloud" and free sites.

I'm an old school computer user. I want control of everything at my fingertips. I backup my computer at least monthly using a 2tb (that's terabyte) solid state drive. It was under $100.

Just another reason not to put data "in the cloud" and free sites.

There's nothing more expensive than when "stuff" is free.
I looked a few minutes ago, and I have over 35,000 pictures on my hard drive and backed up on my solid state drive. It seems that using my own computer, and backing up my files was a good decision.
Jim

[J_Speegle]

..................... It seems that using my own computer, and backing up my files was a good decision.

Not sure if I'm anyway comfortable about leaving my computer up and attached to the internet all the time in order for all my posted pictures is the answer for me. Or even setting up my own file server. Too much risk and hassle when there are other options. 

Bad enough that the gov or hackers can get pass even an air gap now if they want to.

[69GT350H]

Running your own server can be a pain. But it's really nice when things like this happen. I have two servers, the main and the backup. The backup I turn on once every 2 weeks to copy/backup all the hosted media from the main server, do any required updates, then it gets shut down for another two weeks. All this in the case of software or hardware failure, including any virus infections. The main server does a backup to my main desktop PC every night. Then like you Jeff, my PC is backed up to a 2TB external drive once a week. This drive is unplugged unless it's being used for the backup so the ransom ware viruses can not encrypt it if I get that nasty bug. On top of all that, I create an image of my boot OS drives of all my computers (all data is stored on separate D: drives) so that if anything were to happen, I can simply install a new drive, and restore from a known good backup. All three of these computers D: drives are running a Raid 5 array so that in the event of a drive failure, no data is lost.

Yea, I'm a bit of a computer geek. Started when I was 14 (around 1975) with my Commodore 64. Could not leave well enough alone and added a 20mb (that was huge back in the day) hard drive to it. Look where all that lead to, well, and my interest in Mustangs....

Now retired, Senior Systems/Network Administrator for the US Federal Courts.

[jwc66k]

Not sure if I'm anyway comfortable about leaving my computer up and attached to the internet all the time - -

I don't. It's an old Navy trick I learned while out in the fleet. When in port, shut down all the unused electronics.

Bad enough that the gov or hackers can get pass even an air gap now if they want to.

Only if you use wireless. I realized you travel a lot, but consider this - one for the road could be an independent, isolated laptop, and then a desk top for home, backup and processing. I have four right now, two active, two reference and specialized uses. Naturally, a decent virus protection program is mandatory.
Jim

[jwc66k]

Running your own server can be a pain. But it's really nice when things like this happen. I have two servers, the main and the backup. The backup I turn on once every 2 weeks to copy/backup all the hosted media from the main server, do any required updates, then it gets shut down for another two weeks. All this in the case of software or hardware failure, including any virus infections. The main server does a backup to my main desktop PC every night. Then like you Jeff, my PC is backed up to a 2TB external drive once a week. This drive is unplugged unless it's being used for the backup so the ransom ware viruses can not encrypt it if I get that nasty bug. On top of all that, I create an image of my boot OS drives of all my computers (all data is stored on separate D: drives) so that if anything were to happen, I can simply install a new drive, and restore from a known good backup. All three of these computers D: drives are running a Raid 5 array so that in the event of a drive failure, no data is lost.

Yea, I'm a bit of a computer geek. Started when I was 14 (around 1975) with my Commodore 64. Could not leave well enough alone and added a 20mb (that was huge back in the day) hard drive to it. Look where all that lead to, well, and my interest in Mustangs....

Now retired, Senior Systems/Network Administrator for the US Federal Courts.

What you are doing is the price you pay (forced?) to use the computer world. Overkill is a word that comes to mind. After you lose your first computer, overkill isn't enough. I go back to 1961 when the Navy sent met to Crypto school. Crypto receivers used a very basic computer to decode messages. Although it wasn't called a computer, the circuitry was/is the same, only today it's a lot smaller (a whole lot smaller - smarter too). I evolved out of design and into application using some real incredible software to do "stuff". (Shhh- I'm still )covered.
Jim
 

[J_Speegle]

I don't. It's an old Navy trick I learned while out in the fleet. When in port, shut down all the unused electronics.

The challenge I understand is that there are methods that others can use to turn on systems remotely

Guess we have gotten off thread slightly from Photobucket to security now

[69GT350H]

The challenge I understand is that there are methods that others can use to turn on systems remotely

Guess we have gotten off thread slightly from Photobucket to security now

Yes and no. It is the cost that some of us are willing to pay to do our own hosting. But I do not have the resources as those large companies. Power goes out or my home internet line gets interrupted and all my photos are offline. But I do have total control of the content.

[jwc66k]

The challenge I understand is that there are methods that others can use to turn on systems remotely

I use the same technology for my desk top computer's power as your wife's Shelby - there is no way to activate it (either one) remotely if the power is shut off. That's 12VDC to the Shelby, 120VAC to my computer. I learned to live without the luxury of carrying around a "box". A wireless laptop, an iPhone, a tablet - you're on your own.
In the first days of the internet (I used DARPA in the late 80's), there were no viruses, no hackers, no ransomware. Then came "the Cloud". I envision it will fail because someone will want it to. There is nothing you can do except backup the backups.
As to Photo Bucket, are there other internet companies that provide a similar storage service that would work? I find many with features, some for pay, some for free, a TB of storage here and there - that may compensate for Photo Bucket's ending its "thing".
Jim

[ChrisV289]

So I got an e-mail today that Photobucket is under new management and they restored everyone's photos.  I checked one of my postings and it looks like they established 3rd party hosting for now.  Can anyone else confirm?

[1966KGT]

i would donate to help you recover some of the costs if you decide to get you're pics out of their storage

[NEFaurora]

"So I got an e-mail today that Photobucket is under new management and they restored everyone's photos.  I checked one of my postings and it looks like they established 3rd party hosting for now.  Can anyone else confirm?"

Yes, It's absolutely true..

I'd start doing searches in the archives for pics that you always wanted to download because I can tell you that this isn't going to last long.  It's just a "Rope-A-Dope" by the new owners of Photobucket....to try and reel in or reel back old users before they hit them again with a charge.... Don't fall for it.   Take advantage of the time that's left and start download thread pics because they'll be gone again soon.

)

Tony K.

[Bossbill]

I use Flickr who has recently been bought out by Smugmug.

I've already suffered from one photocatastrophy when Webshots went away.
We shall see ...