Getting ready to abandon Photobucket
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 4:24 am
I've been with Photobucket for years, as I've always found they had the best features, least restrictions and were the easiest to use of all the image hosting sites out there.
Over the last few months though, they seem to have taken a good dozen steps backwards. Rather than renew their contract with Pixlr to use their image editing program, they've gone with a clunky, featureless pile of junk which sometimes destroys images, and have removed a bunch of cool features and options to revert back to an interface which is bland and boring, (not to mention SLOOOWW, and regularly crashes), to the point that even a 5yo could design something better. Simple intuitive actions have been replaced with processes requiring 3 or 4 steps and clicks (where those actions still exist at all).
Paying professional and business users have discovered their carefully organised work has been re-arranged, re-named, re-sized, mixed up, savagely compressed, or otherwise borked. All this is being touted as "improvements". Now, in a couple of weeks time, the glitchy, sometimes-working, sometimes-not BETA that they've been playing with for months is about to be forced on all users, even though it is clearly nowhere near usable yet. Right now, if you have the misfortune to log out and back in, or inadvertently click on certain links, you will be insta-switched over to the new interface, with no way to revert back.
Despite almost 100% negative feedback, they are ignoring all complaints and pushing on. It looks like PB have decided they don't give a damn about the needs of professionals, business-people or regular customers, and are instead chasing after the brain-dead Failbook and iCrap market. Even their paying customers are abandoning them in droves.
So, I'm researching alternatives, as if things don't improve markedly in the next two weeks, I'm outa there.
Problem is, the alternatives (Flickr, ImageShack, Imgur, et al) all seem to have ridiculous limitations on their free accounts. 200/250 or 500 images tops? Files not accessed in more than 30 days deleted? Please.. That's just bullshit.
Tinypic isn't an option, as they're owned by Photobucket, whom I am no longer willing to support or recommend. Picasa is out, as they don't support Linux. (nice going, Google!)
Whoever I do go with, I'd really prefer that they have a browser plugin available, to make it easier to upload from websites, etc.
So who does that leave? Any suggestions?
Over the last few months though, they seem to have taken a good dozen steps backwards. Rather than renew their contract with Pixlr to use their image editing program, they've gone with a clunky, featureless pile of junk which sometimes destroys images, and have removed a bunch of cool features and options to revert back to an interface which is bland and boring, (not to mention SLOOOWW, and regularly crashes), to the point that even a 5yo could design something better. Simple intuitive actions have been replaced with processes requiring 3 or 4 steps and clicks (where those actions still exist at all).
Paying professional and business users have discovered their carefully organised work has been re-arranged, re-named, re-sized, mixed up, savagely compressed, or otherwise borked. All this is being touted as "improvements". Now, in a couple of weeks time, the glitchy, sometimes-working, sometimes-not BETA that they've been playing with for months is about to be forced on all users, even though it is clearly nowhere near usable yet. Right now, if you have the misfortune to log out and back in, or inadvertently click on certain links, you will be insta-switched over to the new interface, with no way to revert back.
Despite almost 100% negative feedback, they are ignoring all complaints and pushing on. It looks like PB have decided they don't give a damn about the needs of professionals, business-people or regular customers, and are instead chasing after the brain-dead Failbook and iCrap market. Even their paying customers are abandoning them in droves.
So, I'm researching alternatives, as if things don't improve markedly in the next two weeks, I'm outa there.
Problem is, the alternatives (Flickr, ImageShack, Imgur, et al) all seem to have ridiculous limitations on their free accounts. 200/250 or 500 images tops? Files not accessed in more than 30 days deleted? Please.. That's just bullshit.
Tinypic isn't an option, as they're owned by Photobucket, whom I am no longer willing to support or recommend. Picasa is out, as they don't support Linux. (nice going, Google!)Whoever I do go with, I'd really prefer that they have a browser plugin available, to make it easier to upload from websites, etc.
So who does that leave? Any suggestions?