Photobucket alternative (after the ransomware debacle)?

[thegaminggamer]

The bad news simply don't stop coming.
The removal of Turbo Lister.
The "Netflix tax" (10% GST).
Endless issues with Australia Post.
And now Photobucket who now forbids third-party hosting so any Photobucket image link that goes to eBay becomes a ransom/blackmail.

I need a different image hosting service that:

1) doesn't scramble the filenames of the images you upload
2) has a predictable resulting direct URL (e.g. http://www .imagehost.com/username/originalfilename.jpg
3) offers automatic quick HTML links (e.g. an < img > thumbnail you can click on to get the full size image)
4) works with third party websites like eBay

1) is important because for a seller, filenames like x7m8d2.jpg are completely useless.
2) is important because it makes much easier for a seller to copy and replace their original Photobucket URLs.
3) is not as important but very useful. It is also much faster to have simple thumbnails in each of your 100 listings than to upload several 1MB images per listing.
4) is important and self-explanatory.

Any predictions what the next piece of bad news will be?

[davewil1964]

All my product pics are uploaded from my computer. As are my descriptions.

That way I have total control over my listings. I am not held to 'ransom' by thrid party sites. Whilst Ap and GST are out of my control, these issues certainly aren't.

[oodeals4u]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

All my product pics are uploaded from my computer. As are my descriptions.

That way I have total control over my listings. I am not held to 'ransom' by thrid party sites. Whilst Ap and GST are out of my control, these issues certainly aren't.

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What thegaminggamer is talking about is that you can have images embedd into your description (which you don't seem to have any) and those images are then hosted on a server that's available 24/7.

I too been surprised by the photobucket changed and have been looking at alternatives.

I guess one cheap option is to have web hosting of our own for a small fee, i think around $3-5 a month

[masterstroke.eng]

Photobucket  is shiet why would you bother with that ..to many popup adds slows it down

[egglesdtp]

Just today I was searching for an alternative to PB, after receiving two emails from them in the last 2 days.

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@thegaminggamer wrote:

And now Photobucket who now forbids third-party hosting so any Photobucket image link that goes to eBay becomes a ransom/blackmail.

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No idea what you are referring to as 'ransom/blackmail' apart from PB requiring you to now pay for their image hosting - at an absiolutely exhorbitant cost, which no-one will pay I'm sure, so PB are really shooting themselves in the foot, but I digress....

I have only one image hosted by PB in my descriptions (my logo) as I no longer include photos within the description. But over my two IDs I have around 700 listings, every one of which includes my logo, and the thought of having to replace them all is overwhelming. I haven't decided yet which image hosting service to use, but there seem to be quite a few, such as Free Image Uploader, Imgur, Flickr, and more.

[thegaminggamer]

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@oodeals4u wrote:

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@davewil1964 wrote:

All my product pics are uploaded from my computer. As are my descriptions.

That way I have total control over my listings. I am not held to 'ransom' by thrid party sites. Whilst Ap and GST are out of my control, these issues certainly aren't.

---

What thegaminggamer is talking about is that you can have images embedd into your description (which you don't seem to have any) and those images are then hosted on a server that's available 24/7.

I too been surprised by the photobucket changed and have been looking at alternatives.

I guess one cheap option is to have web hosting of our own for a small fee, i think around $3-5 a month

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$5 or less a month is fair I think although this combined with the rise in eBay store fees (due to the GST) does hurt the smaller sellers. Let us know if you know any good reputable companies for web hosting.

@masterstroke.eng wrote:

Photobucket  is shiet why would you bother with that ..to many popup adds slows it down

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I was willing to put up with it because it did what I wanted to (barely) but this was the last straw. The previous straw was one recent period where they had constant image upload problems (e.g. you try to upload 20 images at a time and 5 fail).

@egglesdtp wrote:

Just today I was searching for an alternative to PB, after receiving two emails from them in the last 2 days.

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@thegaminggamer wrote:

And now Photobucket who now forbids third-party hosting so any Photobucket image link that goes to eBay becomes a ransom/blackmail.

---

No idea what you are referring to as 'ransom/blackmail' apart from PB requiring you to now pay for their image hosting - at an absiolutely exhorbitant cost, which no-one will pay I'm sure, so PB are really shooting themselves in the foot, but I digress....

I have only one image hosted by PB in my descriptions (my logo) as I no longer include photos within the description. But over my two IDs I have around 700 listings, every one of which includes my logo, and the thought of having to replace them all is overwhelming. I haven't decided yet which image hosting service to use, but there seem to be quite a few, such as Free Image Uploader, Imgur, Flickr, and more.

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The Internet is calling it ransomware-esque in the sense that all of this happened suddenly and without any warning. Definitions aside,

Based on my research so far imgur also doesn't allow links on eBay. I'm fairly sure Flickr and Dropbox doesn't either.

As each day passes, I'm probably losing sales (and I'm sure other sellers too) and it's pretty unethical and unprofessional that Photobucket didn't give us one month notice or something like that to prepare.

[davewil1964]

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@oodeals4u wrote:

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@davewil1964 wrote:

All my product pics are uploaded from my computer. As are my descriptions.

That way I have total control over my listings. I am not held to 'ransom' by thrid party sites. Whilst Ap and GST are out of my control, these issues certainly aren't.

---

What thegaminggamer is talking about is that you can have images embedd into your description (which you don't seem to have any) and those images are then hosted on a server that's available 24/7.

I too been surprised by the photobucket changed and have been looking at alternatives.

I guess one cheap option is to have web hosting of our own for a small fee, i think around $3-5 a month

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I'm fully aware of that. I'm not mug enough to embed pics in my descriptions. Why would I? That's what the pic section is for. I am also not into cutesy templates or any other extraneous garbage that distracts a potential buyer from the RELEVANT details of what I'm selling.

Call me a baby boomer.

Edit: especially cutesy templates that don't display properly.

[lookwhatbobfound]

i have used irfanview since day 1, no probs.  still okay regardless of photobucket.  several people have told me that is an imaging service or whatever.  i don't care if you say it's not a photo hosting or a purplekookaburra, it's always worked for m3, still is & is free.  all my personal & ebay, bonanza, ecrater, etsy, amazon pics are on there.

[egglesdtp]

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@lookwhatbobfound wrote:

i have used irfanview since day 1, no probs.  still okay regardless of photobucket.  several people have told me that is an imaging service or whatever.  i don't care if you say it's not a photo hosting or a purplekookaburra, it's always worked for m3, still is & is free.  all my personal & ebay, bonanza, ecrater, etsy, amazon pics are on there.

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The point of the thread is to find a photo hosting site for images used in the descriptions of ebay listings. Irfanview is a great little program, but it is NOT a hosting site, but a editing and storage program.