INFO Image Host Discussion

Redirects:

http://forum.phun.org/showthread.php?t=1486459
http://forum.phun.org/showthread.php?t=1486096

No redirects:

http://forum.phun.org/showthread.php?t=1473489
http://forum.phun.org/showthread.php?t=1485818

 

But its a thread to suggest...

I find this one nice enough
http://imgur.com/

 

I've been looking at the ads of all hosts in general, but I hope to deep dive into this as soon as I have some extra time. I can confirm at minimum that Imagebam is sometimes weird and inconsistent from pic to pic. And it's more complicated than just redirect/no-redirect because there are redirects/popups on some browsers, just not Mobile Safari in this case.

Anyway, definitely noted.

 

I said this to another user who PM'd a suggestion, but I think your wording brings that point into focus. A suggestion—meaning that you're informed about the host in question and have the interests of the forum as whole in mind and not just yourself—should be fine. But if it's a request that benefits only you, this isn't the place for that.

If we allowed every request, this thread would be useless pretty quick. So I get why Scribe said that; I saw that as a request too and not a suggestion. If you do think we're all missing out a great host and want to tell us why, that's ok. But give us your informed reasoning of why it would be good for Phun and not just a request.

As for Imgur, I think the reasons why are already apparent to anybody that's used them—it's a nice, painless experience. But…

As some might know, it used to be allowed around here but was removed as a host when they started blocking us. I covered my thoughts on this before—note that I wasn't around Phun then and have no inside knowledge of Imgur so this is just mildly informed speculation. But I think the gist is that they want to be a host that individuals use to share images everywhere on the web, but not for a site like us—as a whole—to lean on as hosting service for all our images.

The two big parts of this are hotlinking and who they'd want to be associated with. When we hotlink a large image as opposed to a small linked thumb, that decreases visits to their site. They want people to view and comment there and discover more images, etc. And the other part is that we're a porn and file linking forum and they don't want to be known for that. They want to be known for the funny pics that get passed around and go viral—nude or not.

Again that's just me combining the Phun posts about this from years ago, their current TOS, and what I would do if I were them, so take it with a grain of salt. Whatever the case, it might be risky to trust them when they actively blocked us in the past.

 

Is it just me, or all imagebam.com and imagebox.com pics broken at the moment?!

 

It doesn't seem so? What is happening on your end exactly?

 

And that's how all threads look like. Imagevenue.com pics work...tried restarting my PC, didn't change a thing, same with a different browser. But I still feel like it could be me, my whole internet is super slow, but everything else seems to load, so I'm not sure.

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/imagebam.com - says it's just me. Weird.

Tried a different PC, same issue - pics are not loading.

 

I've just tried it on my phone using not my wifi, but my phone carrier and the pics were loading. It's like my provider is blocking these sites...really strange.

 

Yeah, I don't know. I tried pinging imagebam from a bunch of places and tried visiting that same thread from some EU locations in a VPN. I couldn't reproduce it.

 

They have been having problems on and off all day today.

 

I know that imgbox does a daily backup that inconveniences some users for a few minutes. They don't announce it, but most regular users are aware of it.

 

I use iOS exclusively for this site, for me Imagebam behaves exactly how Sennsational describes. I have gotten used to it and know that as soon as I touch the image I must be ready to hit the close button on the additional tab that opens--if you time it correctly you don't get the redirect. I only use my iPad so it isn't too hard to hit the little x, but I imagine it is hell on an iPhone 4 or 5. Unfortunately you only get about 5-10 seconds before the process is repeated.....

 

I use both my phone and pad and the phone is definitely worse between the two when it comes to the tab switching and redirects, due to the manner iOS 7 and/or 8 behave on the phone with the flipping up of each tab. It's a 'less annoying' process on the iPad, since the tab is easier to switch to and close out. I swear the redirect can sense when I am just hovering over the 'x' to close the tab. It switches to the store a split second before I can close out Like you, I've become exceedingly proficient at this 'little game' these image hosts are pulling, but this proficiency has done nothing to lower my annoyance level.

 

I've also counted the time in between the repeat: five seconds

 

Imagebam is the main problem. Everything else was workable.

 

Imagebam
Chrome
Ios 8.3

I despise it. It will redirect to the external app store when first opening an image. If you zoom.or touch the picture it will also then open another app store app.

It's beyond annoying and actually makes me want to visit on mobile.less or.not at all.

There are occasions that upon redirect the image disappears all together with an error message and the app store still opens. So.no image and I'm.in the app store.

 

i just used the mobile site
Chrome
iOS 8.3
Imagebam loaded fast everytime i opened a picture an ad popup appeared.

 

Iphone 5
Safari 8.0
iOS 8.2

I went through them all but like an idiot I didn't enlarge them all. So this is just my experience getting to the pic. Sorry.

Imagevenue: simple ad, easy to dismiss. But I didn't enlarge the pic. Tolerable

Imagebam: nothing. Twice. Did click pic on this one and got the well hello page but the image was in another window. Overall, a pain in the ass but much less so than normal. Typically get a new window and redirect to App Store. I don't have the luxury of avoiding this one because it's so popular but I do click on a lot less pics than I would.

Sharenxs: redirect to App Store. Would avoid.

Image box: took forever, had to click "continue to your pic" then got a pop up window. Would avoid.

Imagezilla: Over 18? Box. Clicked yes, got a popup window and said to hell with it. Would avoid.

Picturescream: redirect to App Store. Would avoid.

Imagesocket: didn't make it past the date of birth page.

Imagescream: redirect to App Store. Would avoid.

Xtupload: nothing. Did it twice. My personal favorite because it was also very fast to load the pic.

Dumpyourphoto: nothing again. Good but slower than xtupload for me.

Post image: ad when enlarging. Acceptable

Xtupload and dumpyourphoto were clearly the best.

Imagevenue and postimage were okay. Imagebam too but usually it sucks.

Others I avoid using because of the AppStore redirect. That shit gets old.

Thanks for caring about the experience for us mobile users!

 

Anyone having issues with imgbox?