Best / most reliable photo hosting.

[dbhost]

American Greetings has sold out Webshots, and it is being transitioned to a new, pay per use service. I don't mind that so much as I mind the fact that the overwhelming majority of my online photos have webshots as the host, so most of my images are going to go away from forum links... I detest going to old threads with image links that are now dead, and am FAR less than happy with Webshots that the paths are not going to stay the same... If they would have just kept the paths and wanted to charge me a reasonable fee I wouldn't be having to make this post actually...

So tell me folks, what photo hosting service, free or otherwise, are you using that gives you the least problems?

I do NOT want to go through this again. I will likely spend countless hours on various forums updating my photo links.. Ick...

[Cochese]

I'm not too happy with the new layout they have, but Photobucket for me has been 100% reliable. I've only seen their service go down once, and any broken links that are lying around is due to me moving the photo out of a particular album.

Best part is, it's free. Flickr is very good too, however the amount of space you get for free is fairly small. I use Picasa a bit since it's so integrated with other Google services, but it hasn't been my first choice historically.

[Stytooner]

I use my own website host, but then that ain't free. Rod's little Australian flag blowing in the breeze is hosted on my site and it's always there.
If it is forum related, then you can use the forums own hosting up to a point. Still not quite unlimited, but then they all have limits.

[Crockett]

I was using Kodak until they were purchased by Shutterfly. They are free also (so far). They did move all of my photos over without a hitch. This happened in July. I haven't done much since the "move" to give you any pros or cons, but some others I know who use Shutterfly have told me they are really good.
Al

[atgcpaul]

I host my images through Google pages/sites. They did change the URL on me once. It's free and there uploading and managing the pictures either directly on the google web page or through Picassa is not too bad.

[BadeMillsap]

+1 Google/Picasa ... works for me, never a problem, plenty of space. I use the free Picasa application on my laptop for most of my editing. Easy to include in BLOG posts ...

[pelligrini]

I use my own domain and webspace if I really need to host photos. It's not free, but I have total control over it.

[radhak]

picasaweb, as linked to your gmail account, is best for photos. They allow video too, but I've not used them for video. They have a theoretical limit of 1GB, but photos up to 2048 x 2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won't count towards your free storage, so for all personal use, you might never reach that limit. And of course, you could create a couple of dummy accounts just to get some more storage.

Even better, if you link your picasaweb to Google+, then everything is free.

Linking to pics on picasaweb is also neat : allows you to display various sizes for the same photo, and gives you easy links to the image itself or for embedding.

[Chris_B]

+1 for Picasa/Google+

1. Google's entire business model revolves around "free" - so a subsequent change to a for-cost model is near-zero probability.
2. With Google's profitability, they are not likely to disappear anytime soon!
3. Google's servers have crazy amounts of bandwidth.
4. IMO, the Picasa UI is quite intuitive.
5. It is easy to control access, folder-by-folder (yourself-only/anyone-with-link/wide-open-and-indexed).

[dbhost]

Well since I take most of my photos these days with my phone, Picasa seems to make the most sense as it is linked to my Google+, and my instant upload on my phone... Just have to shuffle into folders and I am good to go...

[cabinetman]

I use Photobucket primarily. I had images drop from Tinypic.


.

[Black wallnut]

I'm another with my own domain. Not free but the path has never changed. Managed hosting for <$7/ month when I pay on a month to month basis, less if I buy a year at a time. So much storage and transfer that I'll not run out or over either.

[woodyb]

I too vote for getting your own hosting and domain name.

you can get decent hosting for just a couple of bucks a month and a domain name for $6 a year.
at those prices there is just no reason to trust your stuff to any of the free sites or places that you have no control over.

you put the images/websites on your own server and keep a backup on disk or on your computer. that way you never lose anything and your links are never broken. ( as long as you pay the bill of course.).

luck,
robert

[dbhost]

Problem with my own hosting is, I want a mobile app enabled host that will make it easier for me to upload.

Now I need to look to see what I can run on a LAMP host that will allow me to connect my Android for instant upload to my own server... Bet it's not as hard as I am thinking it would be...

[Knottscott]

Photobucket.com is the only host I've used, and is my only reference, but it's been good. Been with them for several years.