Most Fediverse software supports image uploads, so there’s no reason to use Imgur for image hosting. Hell, even on my small single-user server (atomicpoet.org), image hosting is easy peasy. Not only is Imgur not needed, they’re an annoyance for those of us who are used to seeing images natively on the Fediverse.
I know habits are hard to break, but just remember: this isn’t Reddit 🙂
I will add that many of us who work remotely using publicly accessible wifi also use VPNs, and Imgur actively blocks IPs from multiple commercial VPN providers. If you want those users to see the image you’re sharing, Imgur is not the way to go.
Pixelfed works well with other Fediverse services like Kbin and Lemmy. Try hosting there!
I’m usually on kbin, and here, imgur links are broken. Embeds and thumbnails, neither works for any imgur link.
I’ve taken to just ignoring anything with an imgur link. Hopefully with so many better alternatives imgur will die out soon on the fediverse.
Fuck imgur for blocking Mullvad
I remember when imgur used to be good.
imgur has more recently blocked access from numerous VPS, VPN and Tor.
Wait, why? What’s the incentive?
Collect more user data and sell it for $$$ probably.
That and to prevent megaleeching by scraping. It’s easier and cheaper to purchase curated lists of IPs than it is to bootstrap a tool to ban them based upon bandwidth.
Reduce attack surface/abuse. There are plenty of services that maintains lists of “bad IPs” or “VPN IPs”. You can subscribe to them and get the list and block it. Most bots, spammers, attackers etc always run behind some type of VPN or Tor depending on what you’re doing and how much you’re trying to hide your trail.
Most services don’t go out of their way to block VPN IPs because it’s just a support headache/nightmare. Some services like Netflix are legally obligated to block well know VPN IPs
There are plenty of services that maintains lists of “bad IPs” or “VPN IPs”.
Yeah and they’re dicks for doing so.
VPNs are a very basic privacy tool, everyone should be using a VPN at all times.
Ah, that would explain why I kept getting errors viewing images on Reddit with Safari on Mac (which uses a VPN-like privacy system
Was wondering why Imgur wasn’t working for me
How does images work with federation? If 1m users on a big server look at my images that I posted on a small server, is that small server hit with that traffic? Or is all servers caching the image?
Depend on how it’s setup. Some servers are setup to cache images, some don’t. Mine for example doesn’t and streams directly from source instead so i don’t waste storage.
IIRC all text and posts are cached on each server that is federated with one another, while images are just referenced and loaded from the server they were posted on, so if you had an image post on your server, anytime someone wants to load that image it would hit your server
Not strictly true. Mastodon, pixelfed, KBin all cache images.
Image hosting is always easy, it’s never cheap. That’s the difference between an instance with tens of thousands of users and your server with 1.
Yeah even for large Media uploads I’ll probably not use my own instances server and instead use something like YouTube or streamable. Since many instances don’t even support displaying large Media at all i noticed. Like i uploaded a multiple hundreds MB video on my instance and on all Mastodon based instances it showed the file not being available.
You have to be careful with image hosts though. Who knows how long Lemmy images will last? at least Imgur has been around for a decade+.
on a related note, hosting images on your server for users on other servers, eats up a lot of resources too. I know some instances have stopped allowing saving of images.
I suppose if you wanted to be really certain your uploaded images would remain under your control, you could post them to a PixelFed instance and point it to your own domain like images.mydomain.com. That way you could always redirect them if your PixelFed instance goes down.
I always use apps to browse things, and imgur links work exactly the same as native hosted embedded images, with the bonus of also working with animated gifs and mp4s. What actually is the suck about imgur?
Imgur doesn’t work with vpns. To view your meme post I have to got through steps to disable either my work or private VPNs. At this point the end result is I just don’t bother.
I use kbin web app and they don’t show up for me.
Imgur block commercial IP ranges so KBin is unable to fetch, process and cache the thumbnail.
I use Imgur because Memmy has uploading photos direct to Imgur built in, like Apollo did. If the devs swapped to using PixelFed, I’d be using that. It’s just a matter of convenience.
If I was uploading and sharing photos to my own account, yeah I’d use PixelFed. I don’t have an Imgur account.
So yeah, I agree. It would be good to get away from that service.
Does Lemmy not let you just attach them to your post?
Yes you can with markdown. But like… then I’d have to go to whatever image site, upload the photo, copy the link, go back to the app, make my comment or post, paste the photo link, bracket it with markdown, and post.
Or, I could just click the little image button in Memmy and click upload photo and it does it for me.
like soOh yeah. But I click a button like that and my image is uploaded to the instance (KBin)
PS. Can’t see that image as Imgur blocks my VPN.
This entirely. Just posted the same thing basically bc I’m also using memmy and it’s like I don’t have a choice. What do you suggest then instead of complaining about it.
Not all of us the web browser/desktop to browse lemmy.
Not all of us the web browser/desktop to browse lemmy.
It’s almost like I needed a replacement for an app that was recently stolen from me.
Use kbin to browse the whole fediverse.
It has image hosting.
But is there an app? If not then this suggestion is kinda moot since this thread is about apps like Memmy defaulting to Imgur upload
The PWA works great when loaded into Firefox.
I have to ask: why does it seem like most people are clamoring to hand their account data over to yet another third party? Apps are convenient, but they’re not necessary.
What do you suggest when uploading a photo when commenting through an app? Most apps I have tried in the past including the one I’m on right now just upload to Imgur and paste a link in for you.
What is your suggestion for mobile users then?
use a web browser…even on your phone…
No? That defeats the whole purpose of not wanting to use the browser app(s) on my phone.
That’s like saying “just browse Reddit on your safari browser on your phone forehead and you won’t have to worry about Apollo shutting down or any other 3rd party app”
Such short-sightedness.
Thers’s plenty of other good reasons not to use non-free closed source “SaaS” like reddit.
then again, if your phone has “safari browser” you probably are unable to be reasoned with anyway.
Stop your Apple bad elitist bullshit. No one wants that and it isn’t at all helpful to the conversation about what apps achieve the solution OP looking for
I like it lol
Apple users need to be taken down a peg.
It’s not a competition, users of anything are just people looking for a product that works best for them
Not wanting to use the browser is its own purpose? Of course I understand if you want to use a specialized app that offers more features, better usability, nicer layouts than the original websites of the services they are for. But using a specialized app just because it’s not the browser (which, by the way, it often really is anyway), why that?
Kbin doesn’t support pasting images from the clipboard, so it’s kind of a useless feature for me most of the time.
Its been brought to my attention on a previous thread that if you’re attaching images to comments on Kbin, Lemmy users cannot see them.
I still very much dislike imgur though, so I wouldn’t suggest that as a solution. But embedding images into hyperlinks seems to be the best way to ensure your comment containing an image is viewed correctly by the wider fediverse.
Yep it is super annoying atm. Getting to where Reddit + RES was for any Fediverse frontend would be my ideal, but I know that is likely a bit away yet.
However currently Imgur links require me do multiple click/page loads to see anything with Kbin and right now that sucks because there are a fair amount of posts that link to them. And saying, well people should just use X/Y/Z to host it instead is a bad solution. The solution should always be to make X/Y/Z a better/easier hosting option while still supporting other hosts.
