Site Update » Imgur problems · 5:23am Feb 7th, 2016
Imgur has blacklisted us for image embeds, stating that they do not allow images on their service to be used as content on other websites. Their ToS seems to confirm this, stating:
Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network.
This apparently applies to users uploading images to post on other websites (including this one, and I would have to assume most others), which we were not previously aware of. Unfortunately I do not have a recommendation of an alternative site for users to host images they need to embed on our site or elsewhere.
They do have an official embed function, however is highly limited and incompatible with various aspects of our code due to requiring a <script> embed that is both a security risk and makes certain assumptions about how the page being embedded on works, which don't hold up on our site. I cannot find a functional <iframe> embed solution, so for the moment I have no workaround that will allow the image to appear on the page or behind an expand button. I'm not sure that we can use their embed under their ToS anyway...
You should still be able to link to the gallery page if you need to share an Imgur image on-site, however it is unclear exactly how their ToS applies in that situation, so it's possible they will block that too at some point.
For users that need to include images in their story, we should be able to offer an image upload function that will enable this soon, however as this could potentially be a large number of images we need to make sure that everything is properly ready before we enable such a feature. Unfortunately I cannot promise any particular date, but hopefully it won't be too complicated to setup.
Time to go back to Imageshack. Oh wait...
I switched all the images in my stories to imgbox. Seems to be working well enough so far.
[sarcasm]Awesome.[/sarcasm]
Good thing I've got a DeviantArt page, too.
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Time to use Google Image search for image hosting!
And that's why I use Photobucket.
I wish there was a way we could just upload a picture instead if having to do a url.
I think a local image hosting solution would be good; perhaps you could make a script that goes through stories that have embedded images in them/popular stories, and offers the feature to those authors for beta testing so you don't get flooded
Huh.
Go figure.
~Skeeter The Lurker
That seems to mean as part of the website's layout, which I assume some people were doing as custom dividers and such, not for just uploading and embedding a single image on a single page.
Edit: The key word in that bit of their ToS you quoted is libraries.
Okay, that'll be cool.
I can easily wait for that.
Damn, now I have to go through my blogs...
Implying that there are other uses for image upload and storage services?
Snark aside, what about Picasa? The Picasa web function does allow you to generate both direct links and embed code snippets for an image.
I have faith in you.
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I'm interested to hear the story behind that, if there is one. Keep up the good work.
...So basically they want people to use other sites to host images? That seems kinda counterproductive to me.
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The thing is they don't really define that, and having, say, a couple standard reaction images you host on imgur and reuse could easily be considered a small library of reaction images.
Imgur does have heavy traffic daily, I would see why this happened. Wonder how the local upload will do to the fimfic servers, hope the load on servers doesn't get too high ^^
I've used photobucket.com for years. No complaints!
Well, that explains my situation.
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That's probably not the intended meaning but it could be interpreted that way. You could ask them exactly why FimFic got blacklisted. (Like, what images linked from where.)
3738123 I asked Deviant Art, they are perfectly find with you embedding images elsewhere that are uploaded to their site.
so basically they've taken the thing that made them popular and said "we don't like this any more", and fuck everyone.
TinyPic may work for some, it's worth a try.
Google Drive and MediaFire both have pretty good picture embedding.
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Thirding photobucket. I know it's so last decade, but it seems to work pretty well.
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We already serve an enormous number of images for story cover art and user avatars, so theoretically in-story image uploads shouldn't be too bad percentage wise. However we do have to make sure that users aren't allowed to upload thousands of images and take up enormous amounts of space on our systems, and it'll take a bit of time to build the upload UI and test it, so don't expect the feature to be ready immediately.
A direct upload to FimFic that'd allow users to eliminate the second party host like Imgur would be really handy. Although, I don't know what that would do for bandwidth since that's why knighty got rid of the banners(?)
Pity, really.
This could make having huge hard drives a necessity for the site, considering the size difference between text and image files.
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I was able to use a chrome extension called "Referer Control" (the one with the most ratings) to get around the issue on my end.
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I believe the reason that he got rid of the banners is that they were all MLP-based, and he's planning on reworking the site to be a generic fanfiction site.
What's the point of Imgur, then?
They clearly don't want people using it.
3738144 I'm not a tech person. I didn't understand half of what they were talking about.
As if Imgur wasn't started with the express purpose of being a content delivery network for Reddit… Ugh. Such nonsense.
I mostly use Dropbox when I need to link things, but they've since phased out public folders completely, so I guess I can't recommend that…
I just use the deviantart sta.sh function. It's basically one great big private image storage site.
Hm.
Maybe one could use Gyazo for the time being?
Wouldn't be the best, but it'd be at least something...
~Skeeter The Lurker
3738140 Alright then, so it will just be in the fimfic CDN? Are you also thinking about removing any old image files, if there are any
Yeesh. Thanks for dealing with the nuts and bolts of keeping the ponyfics flowing.
I use dropbox for the occasional image, so far without incident. As far as I can tell it's against their TOS
Welp, bye bye imgur. It was fun while it lasted.
Thanks for keeping us updated.
Oh well, time to switch all my direct links over to TinyPic. Considering the amount of pictures I have, that'll be quite the task.
May as well start using Derpibooru in this case.
ive never used imgur i always use tinypic for uploading images
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Fimfiction.net will never be anything else. Knighty is planning on having a second site attached to the same backend with different branding for the generic fiction site.
Well shit. This explains a lot.
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I'll definitely be switching all the pictures I use online over to imgbox.
I use postimg.org. They're what Image Shack and Photobucket used to be before they over-complicated the plumbing. They're free, too.
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We already deal with a fairly large amount of image data for user avatars and story cover art. Ignoring cost-related problems, we could easily handle many terabytes worth of images under our current configuration. The costs, however, are a potential issue and I want to make sure that the limits are set well enough that they don't become one.
3738134 Ah, okay. Thanks for looking into that! Def a good option to consider. :)
FYI, one can fix it locally by preventing one's browser from sending a referer header to i.imgur.com. (I use Firefox with RefControl installed; this works for me.)
I'm having flashbacks to that time that guy embedded a ton of images on our userpages.
Well fuck.
there goes the only way I can share photos on my mobile devices...
So Imgur basically just ruined it's entire purpose.