Dropbox is ending public folder support

[Cressy Snr]

So....
All my embedded stuff/pics/schematics in all my threads will disappear off every forum they are linked to, next March as Dropbox will deactivate all my links.

[Thermionic Idler]

Oh bugger. That's how I link photos too. It's easy - right click public link, paste.

So what are the alternatives?

[simon]

Me too. I gave up with Photobucket because they messed about with it, now Dropbox are at it.

[Cressy Snr]

That's it then.
As of the 17th March the Dropbox Public folder no longer works as it used to.
Most of the images in my pentode monoblock thread are gone from every place they have been posted.
Only a couple at the end of the thread on here, which link to Imgur are visible.
They'll stay gone because I can't be arsed to do anything about it.

The thread is now mostly meaningless...hey ho.

[simon]

I haven't bothered reading up on this Steve, the trauma of Photobucket is still too vivid! Is there a way to still use Dropbox or is if time to find yet another hosting site?

Not sure what the best way to go for longevity is - so many images gone - all my Owston photos for a start.

[pre65]

I still use Photobucket.

It can be slow at times, and difficult to upload now and then.

[Cressy Snr]

I haven't bothered reading up on this Steve, the trauma of Photobucket is still too vivid! Is there a way to still use Dropbox or is if time to find yet another hosting site?

Not sure what the best way to go for longevity is - so many images gone - all my Owston photos for a start.

Probably be able to use Dropbox to post images but I bet they'll make you pay for the privilege.

[shane]

I just dump photos onto the bit of web space that comes free with my Plusnet account (www.thepippin.plus.com) but they do get a bit cross if it generates too much traffic.

Since many of us have quite large amounts of music stored on NAS drives, is there not a secure way of allowing access to photos stored there?

[jack]

Third-party hosting is always going to be a potential problem due to "Free" and "Forever" being subjective terms in the connected world.

I only link to picture I host personally, e.g. on my Plus.net or other sites, or I resize them and upload to the forum so they're hosted by t'other Nick.

The advantage of going to the bother of resizing & uploading is that they'll last the life of the forum (hopefully).

[simon]

Third-party hosting is always going to be a potential problem due to "Free" and "Forever" being subjective terms in the connected world.

I only link to picture I host personally, e.g. on my Plus.net or other sites, or I resize them and upload to the forum so they're hosted by t'other Nick.

The advantage of going to the bother of resizing & uploading is that they'll last the life of the forum (hopefully).

Yes, the safest way is to upload them to the forum. But we all like to see nice piccies without clicky clicky.

Possibly the best way as Shane says is to host them from our own NAS drives. But opening up ports makes me nervous - I don't understand enough to know it's properly secure. Perhaps it isn't anyway.

Plusnet is interesting though. I'm with them now but don't remember seeing anything about webspace. Perhaps it's a legacy thing, or they don't publicise it well?

[jack]

Yes - I was a VERY early customer of Plus.net, so I have web space - I don't believe they offer this any more, so I mainly use GoDaddy for other sites.

I started on Demon Internet Services - my username there was "OldNick" (notice the pun!) - Demon's support line numbers all ended with the digits "666"...

I'm still, secretly, "oldnick" on Plus.net, but redirected all the desmith.* domains there too, so http://www.oldnick.plus.com/ is the same as http://www.desmith.net (and .org/.com etc.)

At some point, I'll leave Plus.net for hosting and move the lot to GoDaddy...

If you insert the image into your post, it's only one click

[shane]

I've been with Plusnet or their previous incarnations since 1997, so maybe it is a legacy thing. Certainly there doesn't seem to be any reference to it on their sales blurb these days, and I know that EE don't offer anything either, so I guess none of the mainstream ISPs do any more.

[simon]

If you insert the image into your post, it's only one click

Yes, but it would be a bit tedious when I post 50 to 100 photos of Owston. And not much of a viewing experience.

I dont know, lousy free stuff that doesn't do what we want it to do, tsch!

[andrew Ivimey]

I mm mm mm in very simple terms what does this mean please?

[simon]

When you see a large photo on a forum, rather than a thumbnail you click on to enlarge, it's actually only a link to a photo somewhere on the net with a bit of forum code to tell it to display the link as a nice photo.

So the photo has to be hosted somewhere, such as Photobucket or Dropbox. They're free in some cases, which is my favourite price, but if lots and lots of us are linking lots of files which half the world are in reality downloading then the hosts need expensive hardware to provide us with a free service.

In the case of Photobucket they made it all but unusable with advertising and they changed the way the folders were linked meaning all the old links no longer work.

NSTAAFL