(I do not know whether or not this topic belongs in this forum thread; to the forum moderators, please feel free to move it if you think it belongs elsewhere. I didn't place it in the Help section due it being third-party related rather than Subeta-focused.)

IF YOU WERE PINGED, PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ MY EXPLANATION IN THE FOLLOWING SPOILER; IF YOU WERE NOT, SKIP THIS SPOILER SECTION AND READ DOWN BELOW INSTEAD.

Photobucket recently changed their TOS and made it so that hotlinking images is no longer an option unless you pay for their services. This effectively broke almost every single one of my images I was using for my pet profiles, and so I desperately need a new free image hosting site for myself and for others who relied on my hosting for their content. Does anyone have any suggestions on a good replacement host?

What I'm looking for is very specific for what I need in terms of requirements -

1. It cannot have a clause in its TOS that disables the use of hotlinking / content distribution-type services.
2. It needs to have some folder/album/gallery-type organizational options, so that I can group images together efficiently for different projects.
3. I also want something private / geared more towards content hosting than social media sharing.
4. Relatively "unlimited" / allow large amounts of MB/KB etc.
5. Allows multiple filetypes (.png, .gif, etc.).
6. Does not resize images / have a size limit for images.

SITES THAT WILL NOT WORK; PLEASE DO NOT SUGGEST THESE:

• Photobucket (the entire reason I need a new host)
• deviantART's Sta.sh (not enough organization options / limited web storage / unwieldy interface)
• Imgur (disallows content distribution)
• Flickr (disallows content distribution)
• Tumblr (literally broke all my images a few months ago when they changed their URLs; I no longer trust Tumblr)
• ImageShack (got majorly hacked at one point; leads me to distrust their security)
• TinyPic (a product of Photobucket - I do not trust Photobucket anymore)
• Dropbox (limited web storage, I use Dropbox for commercial use rather than personal and want to keep them separate)
• MediaFire (changes file extensions to .jpg)

I may be adding onto this list. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know; I'm sorry if I just listed off every site you were going to recommend, but the whole reason why I'm making a post about this is because I've looked into many of the "popular" hosting sites and found that they don't meet my requirements for whatever reason.

thanks for the ping and i'll be giving the new ones you sent a go :)

edit: he's all fixed❤️

I think you'll be hard pressed to find something that's reliable and meets all of those requirements, to be honest. : / It's not free, but it might be best to create your own website for hosting your images because it'll allow you the maximum amount of control and freedom. There's several cheap hosting sites you could go through. I don't really have any suggestions for obscure and reliable free image hosts since I've been using imgur for years with 0 issue, but I hope you're able to find something that works for you!

I actually have my own website that completely allows me control over everything. (Which is nice, because I like to test out PHP on there occasionally since I code.) It's where I test out all my profiles before putting them live. Unfortunately, I really don't think I can host the sheer amount of images I have on my website due to how many of them I have, and paying for that much web storage can cost a lot cumulatively speaking on a annual basis when I'd rather not have to do so.

Imgur doesn't work for me given its rule against content distribution / you cannot use it as a site to host graphics. I also don't want to be permanently banned and blocked from viewing images on Imgur since it's such a popular site people often use, and they state in their TOS that they will actually do that -

This literally means if I cannot use it for the purpose of what I need, and I don't want to risk such a ban or actions taken against me on a legal scale, since they even mention "report you to the authorities." The TOS makes it pretty clear they very much frown at / are hostile about this, aha.

I'm aware of their TOS, and I wasn't suggesting you use it since you already said that you didn't want it suggested LMAO... I was just stating that since that's what I used, I wasn't aware of any other sites. To be fair though, I've always felt like their TOS regarding content distribution is aimed more at entire websites hosting their images through them, as opposed to single users hosting images for misc. purposes. I post my profile commissions there, and have been for years, with 0 issues. But, sorry for mentioning it off-handedly. :/

I'm know the price of websites add ups, haha... I have one for my portfolio and it's ridic expensive to keep up with but a necessary evil for me. I wasn't sure how much storage you would need, I just know you could easily get 3-5GB of storage for fairly cheap. My commission folder that has thousands of images barely amounts to 1.5GB, so I assumed that you would need something around there since it seemed like you were mainly needing it for profiles. Sorry for assuming and suggesting that you use webhosting, haha... It just seemed like the best option since it'll be next to impossible to find something that hits all of the bullet points, unfortunately.

I think I'm just more worried about getting in trouble with Imgur that I'd just rather not skirt around the edges of the rule at all. It just makes me really nervous to do something like that, OTL. I'm probably a lot more paranoid / anxious about that kind of thing than I should be, admittedly, but ah. I do appreciate your response and feedback a lot, though! I'm kind of wondering if I'm not the only person in this boat since Photobucket did this so suddenly and without warning; I can't be the only one feeling the repercussions of this aha.

I think the best suggestion I've had so far is Imgbox, a site built to actually be a content distribution/delivery network. (It's slightly less secure than I was hoping, but I guess it's my best option at this point.) I'm still open for suggestions though if anyone comes along with something better, but I've been slowly trying to migrate the more important things over there for now.

The problem about the whole self-host service conundrum is I used Photobucket for more than just Subeta profiles - I mostly mentioned that since that's the most relatable reason for needing a new image host / making a forum post about it on here, aha. I just feel overwhelmed with the sheer amount of things I'm going to have to replace in all honesty. But thanks again for your time and feedback/suggestions - I really do appreciate you taking the time out of your day to respond to me. Sorry if it seems like I'm not considering what you have to say; it's mostly because it's already something I've thought of and came to the conclusion that it didn't quite hit home on what I needed. I hope you have a wonderful day though! ❤️❤️

i really don't think you'll get in trouble with imgur. i'm pretty sure that part of their TOS only really means that you can't use it to host images/graphics for your own actual website (as in, a site where you COULD host your own images but you don't feel like spending the server space). using it to host graphics for a site like subeta is completely fine as far as i can tell. i've never heard of anyone "getting in trouble" for it, everyone does it, it's really not something i've ever been concerned about. what i think they are really worried about is people hosting an entire website's worth of images on their site, not like... images for my tumblr theme.

(like honestly what is the point of imgur if you're not allowed to post the images there on other sites? will every person who used imgur to host and share a funny reaction image get reported to the authorities? what authorities? who actually cares?)

Which is partially what I intend to do, therefore making Imgur not a good option for me.

You may not be able to find a free option that's truly unlimited or allows unlimited file sizes, because - simply put - these things cost money to host! Even image hosting sites need to make a profit somehow.

I did some more research for you and found this website called Cloudinary that advertises itself as something you can use as a CDN for your own website. They have a free plan that looks like it may be enough for your needs. You can check it out here and see if it meets your other requirements: https://cloudinary.com