Looking for a good, free, online image hosting service

August 10, 2006 3:40 AM

Can anyone suggest a good, free, online image hosting service? PhotoIsland is gone, PhotoBucket is shit and freely goes into my files and deletes images (like nude photographs of my girlfriend that did not show any nipple or genitalia and a cartoon I drew of us screwing -a cartoon!-) and their server is either really slow or just 'locks' half the time, so loading images for a post on my blog is a huge chore. I'm looking for a fast, realiable service that will not censor my PG-13 content. I understand that these are free services and I shouldn't bitch, but they need to understand that they wouldn't have advertisers without users like me. HELP!
posted by squidfartz to Computers & Internet (24 answers total)

Have you tried Flickr? It will put questionable content behind a warning, but not delete it (that I know of). You can have up to the most recent 200 photos accessible at one time, but if you have linked older photos to a page elsewhere, they will still be visible.
posted by jb at 3:53 AM on August 10, 2006

Also, there are some nice apps for uploading quickly (right from windows explorer).
posted by jb at 3:54 AM on August 10, 2006

Have you considered Flickr? You can hotlink images from there as long as you link back to the photo's page on the site. There's no bandwidth limit afaik.
posted by randomination at 3:54 AM on August 10, 2006

Have I considered previewing? No, it doesn't look like it. Oops.
posted by randomination at 3:55 AM on August 10, 2006

Flickr is great for me!
posted by k8t at 3:55 AM on August 10, 2006

Still in beta but Zooomr is very good too with a free Pro account for bloggers.
posted by ceri richard at 4:10 AM on August 10, 2006

Response by poster: These are all excellent suggestions -thank you so much.
posted by squidfartz at 5:15 AM on August 10, 2006

I've been using Fileanchor after hearing about it on SA and have been happy with it. It's a 20Mb filesize limit and you can upgrade it to 50Mb (visit their forums and look for posts on how to do this)
posted by JJ86 at 5:57 AM on August 10, 2006

BTW, Flickr doesn't allow much in the way of nude or overly sexual content.
posted by JJ86 at 5:58 AM on August 10, 2006

I use both flickr and Ofoto (now called Kodak Gallery). I have friends who use Snapfish and like it, too.
posted by echo0720 at 6:01 AM on August 10, 2006

Another one is Shutterfly, although I think that is more "family oriented". They do pretty good printing services.
posted by 543DoublePlay at 7:17 AM on August 10, 2006

Picasa by Google now has a web album feature in beta - you might want to check it out.

Their TOS says no pornography or obscenity - but doesn't define either.

http://picasaweb.google.com
posted by jeffmik at 7:54 AM on August 10, 2006

http://www.yourep.com looks good, the free account is limited to 2 GB though.
posted by convex at 8:39 AM on August 10, 2006

there is also myfabrik, no upload limit during beta and 2gigs storage
posted by Pasa la bola chetu at 8:40 AM on August 10, 2006

People who are suggesting snapfish, kodak Gallery etc must have missed your comment about nude photos. Even with pg13 content most companies that public aren't going to want to deal with your pictures.

Why not buy cheap space on a server and host them yourself?

but they need to understand that they wouldn't have advertisers without users like me. HELP!

You're wrong. They have enough users for advertisers not to have to deal with questionable content of one person. When you use free space, you have to play by their rules, and that's what you need to understand.
posted by justgary at 8:51 AM on August 10, 2006

This is a relatively new host that I can guarantee will not have a problem with the dirty pics.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:54 AM on August 10, 2006

i'm a big fan of webshots. a free account gives you enough space for most people, but if you need more, you can either sign up for an account (relatively cheap) or just create another free account. webshots also provides software to both free and registered users to easy upload multiple pictures online. it's also spyware free. I've been using it for years now and the selling point for me was that you can share full-sized photos unline flickr which reduces the image size online.

www.webshots.com
posted by deeman at 9:08 AM on August 10, 2006

Nearly Free Speech is exactly what you need.
posted by phrontist at 9:13 AM on August 10, 2006

Plogger is an open-source PHP/MySQL web photo gallery.

Or you could use a photo gallery plugin for weblog software, like myGallery for WordPress, or Photo Gallery for Movable Type.

Photo Gallery's based on these galleries and templates by Stop Design, which describe an iPhoto-to-Movable Type-to-web site workflow.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:17 AM on August 10, 2006

JJ86: "BTW, Flickr doesn't allow much in the way of nude or overly sexual content."

That's absolutely not true. You can post all kinds of stuff there, just be aware that some
sites crawl flickr for those kinda pics, so be careful about making them public.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 10:00 AM on August 10, 2006

Flickr lets you post nudes... I have several hundred from the solstice parade I was just at... Flickr moderators are pretty open-minded about what needs to be private.

But honestly, if you're going to be posting up cartoons/pictures/artwork, DeviantArt may be a better fit. Flickr is made for photos, and isn't always friendly to non-photos. Plus if they make your stream private-only, only family/friends can view your pics... at DA, anyone that identifies as over 18 can view...
posted by hatsix at 11:06 AM on August 10, 2006

Response by poster: Thank you so much for all of the suggestions.
posted by squidfartz at 6:22 PM on August 10, 2006

People who are suggesting snapfish, kodak Gallery etc must have missed your comment about nude photos.

Nah, I just didn't realize that they checked that sort of stuff -- I don't upload too many nude pictures...

Sorry about that!
posted by echo0720 at 7:22 PM on August 10, 2006

Don't forget to mark your answer for what you feel is the best option (even if you try them out for a couple weeks, come back and mark!), I'm sure others will find the information useful.
posted by hatsix at 8:03 PM on August 10, 2006