PSA: Stop using Imgur for now
The above image is all us folk in the UK see when you do, and if we try to use a VPN + incognito, we get this:
403 means forbidden, so the message is disingenuous.
They must have put some effort into block lists for VPN servers. Even if it works for some of us, it's not worth it.
For more information on this, see this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo
People still use imgur?
I do, that's the only one I can remember which I can embed easily here.
What are the alternatives? I wish I could just upload images for comments in PieFed.
Catbox is basically what Imgur used to be before it went to absolute shit. You upload images, you can link to them. That's it. You don't need to create an account, but if you do, you can see everything you've uploaded. It's free. Not really sure what more you can ask for in an image host.
I just upload directly to the instance, at least that's what I think I'm doing. My app lets me do that (Boost).
Wdym? Can't you see this image I am just embedding on the fly rn?
I'm using Boost for Lemmy and I never questioned how it works, but I can just add images here straight from my gallery.
Until this I used it as my daily meme scroller
It sounds like the platform of choice for talking shit about the UK these days.
Imgur has been shitty for years at this point. They kept fucking with the UI when all I wanted to do was upload images and share the link. They should have stayed in their lane, not try to reinvent their platform as social media. Then their wholesale blocking of VPN traffic? Tired of that nonsense. I use imgbb now.
I will say I don't like the direction imgur went, but to play devil's advocate, I don't think there was any way around it.
The problem is that being an image host used by millions of users is incredibly expensive, and between needing to pay for the infrastructure, content moderators, and (in this case) regulatory compliance, it all adds up.
The only income model they have is ads, which is why they needed to re-tool the UI to hinder users' ability to direct share images, and converting it to a more social media type of format keeps users on the site so they can cycle in more ads for more revenue.
An ideal internet would not need to rely on ad money to work, but I'm struggling to think of what else could be done at the scale imgur operates, as donation models can barely even keep Lemmy instances above water. If ad money wasn't a thing, would sites like imgur be able to exist? Maybe they shouldn't, I don't know.
Always wondered how Imgur stayed afloat in the first place. As to people whining about ads, yeah I block everything I can, but I'm not about to removed about Imgur providing me a free service and sending ads.
Like you, I don't see a way around it. Sites like Imgur have to be provided by private enterprise, and that requires funding. Can't see how a subscription model works, people simply wouldn't pay.
God forbid the government fund any of it. Look how the Brit and American politicians are fucking up sites that aren't even government! And don't start me on what American government sites are deleting and displaying.
And it's not just known IPs from commercial providers. I rolled my own OpenVPN server on a Digital Ocean droplet. BLOCKED.
They kicked me to the new layout which I abhor, rather not use the site at all. Took me 10-minutes to find the non-obvious place they hid the option to roll it back.
"both the ICO and Ofcom - the media regulator enforcing the Online Safety Act - said Imgur suspending access for UK users had been its own "commercial decision"
They're just trying to avoid getting fined by the UK.
Not really a shit post.
Sucks for the UK.
Works fine with a VPN for me.
I put it on here because it's one of the communities that posts the most photos and I've seen a few Imgur embeds posted here in the last day or two. Feel free to forward to any other channel.
As for it working for you, yeah I suspect they have some IP ban lists, and it definitely won't cover every VPN, but I don't think it's reasonable to ask someone to use a different VPN to see your post. Not that you were necessarily implying that.
This doesn’t seem like it’s Imgur’s fault for trying to avoid prison. Perhaps more fire is needed in your local MP’s home?
Them blocking VPNs is a bit much though. At that point I don't feel like it's their responsibility.
I tested a dozen different VPN endpoints and none of them are blocked.
so what you say is, we have a means to post things in such a way the british can’t see them… 🧐 /j
wait am I british o.O
sorry you had to find out this way 😔
wait it doesn't work for me either
I'm a Yankee?!
{"code":"download-file-error","msg":"Unable to download image, bad response 429 Too Many Requests"}
Huh. I'm from Baltics, no VPN
Good job Imgur, kick the brits off your site until they stop being wankers.
should be: 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
It's not due to legal reasons though. They just decided to exit UK, because they're trying to avoid paying fines for previous infringements.
Yeah I've had this issue when using Mullvad. Definitely a VPN specific issue.
My VPN is custom and they block me. How can they tell the traffic is being routed via VPN? I should know this, can't quite remember how that works.
Where are you hosting your custom VPN? I assume some kind of server rented from a data center. Which means your IP address will be from a data center, not a residential or mobile address.
Because up address spaces of known hosting providers and VPN providers is known.
If anyone wants to selfhost their own replacement I just spun up picsur a couple months ago and highly recommend it. Dead simple and lightweight.
How does that handle the initial flood of requests when every federated instance asks for a freshly posted image all at the same time? Or is that a smaller problem than I am imagining?
I've been looking for something like this. Thank you!
You're welcome took me forever to find glad I can share!
Is this because of the UK age verification thing?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_age_verification_in_the_UK
No, it's because imgur has refused to conduct the simple 'are you over the age of XX' when people create accounts, which is required by law... there's no verification of anything involved. Just a tick the box exercise... they couldn't even be bothered to do that and that's why they're being investigated and are facing massive fines for years of refusal to do what every other site has done for probably 2 decades now... It's got nothing to do with the draconian online safety act that was recently brought in... it's imgur throwing their toys out of the pram and screaming 'LALALALALALALA' we can't hear you now. it will have zero effect on the investigation and fines for their previous failings to follow the law... it's literally cutting of their nose to spite their face.
Probably not directly, but we don't know because Imgur has unprofessionally decided to return an incorrect raw JSON error message instead of explaining the block.
There is a message from the ICO noting the block and that it was considering fining them for failing to take user reported age as part of account creation. This is different from the OSA age verification
See the attached article, but yeah pretty much.
Fucking hell. As someone in the UK who used Imgur, this sucks. Like fuck sake, I'm being fucked by the OSA and the reaction to the OSA.
It's been dying for a long time, the vpn blocking started ages ago and the UK block entirely was recent as they're facing massive fines in the UK... nothing to do with the online safety act that recently came into effect... but due to an ongoing investigation over imgurs failure to do basic age checks at all... and blocking the UK is tantamount to them throwing their toys out of the pram and going LALALALALALALA we can't hear you now. It won't affect the investigations and fines over the years of failings prior to that.
After the last wave of protests over the shitty new owners and their repeated firings of staff and the degredation of the service... they went on a mass banning and censorship spree and further alienated the users. I can't imagine there are that many left there now.
Not worth the effort trying to get around it... there are alternatives that are actually better.
remember when imgur was built because all the other image hosts were bloated and slow? when imgur was good? Pepperidge farm remembers.
I've been wondering about this for a while, what do people recommend for FOSS imgur alternatives (or just simple image hosting)? 🤔
(Of course the UK should just allow free access to information, but I would still prefer to be able to use something FOSS anyway)
For Lemmy I think you can just upload directly, which is what I do. More generally I'm not sure.
There are a million services like this but I doubt many are FOSS as there are significant coats involved in large-scale image hosting.
What kind of coats? I like coats
Loading directly on lemmy sucks for me. When someone does that in a comment, I'm stuck with whatever resolution the thing is, can't make it big enough to see or read.
I don't want to use the feature because I have to download then upload the pic I want. Not seeing a way around that.
I don't believe it's FOSS, but Catbox is very simple and allows you to link directly to images/videos that you upload, with no ads and no login required.
This site looks cool, but don't spread it around too much, because if it gets popular, we all know what will happen.
As a brazilian, I've been having all sorts of issues with media being geolocked on Lemmy. I feel like the platform is becoming increasingly hostile to me.
I noticed with some basic testing with VPNs that a PC running Linux and a VPN is fairly obscured with no DNS or IP leaks. But when doing the same with an android phone, even with a good VPN, the browser still passes unique identifiers of the phone.
So I'm thinking the ones who say they can still use imgur are probably accessing it via a PC and not a phone.
It's not accessible with a pc either.
Connected to my VPN in Amsterdam, I get this message on Firefox but not Edge. And I could swear Edge was erroring not long ago. Don't know long that's been going on, I noticed a few months back.
That sounds like a you problem, sorry.
I feel like making some memes mocking the UK and posting them there now.
Victim blaming much? We didn't ask for this. In fact, we specifically asked not for this. Same as how most US folk didn't ask for a dictator to run their country and making fun of them for living in a dystopia is a bit tasteless.
It's not a big huge deal, sure, but I also think it's not a big ask for posters to do things differently.
We didn’t ask for this
The UK is a democratic country. The electorate saw fit to put insane greedy cunts with sociopathic traits in power. Also to leave the EU, lol
Fight within your political system, while you still have one, don't work around its effects.
But Trump got the most votes. If they didn't want a dictator in their country they shuldn't have voted for it.
Why? I don't post stuff so I don't really care either way, but free vpns are so easy to find and use and the paid options aren't that expensive either.
Well done for not reading the post
What do you think you're paying with when you're using a "free" VPN?
Let's give this classic poem a tweak shall we...
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trans community (The UK is currently here) And I did not speak out Because I was not trans
Then they came for all people of colour (The USA is now here) And I did not speak out Because I was not a person of colour
Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
Not caring because it doesn't directly affect you is how you end up on this road to fascism to begin with. It's why there have been thousands of arrests of innocent people in the UK for simply protesting about a ban on a group of people who threw paint on some RAF planes and vandalised some genocide supporting israeli weapons manufacturer... because some people do care about others, because they have compassion and a conscience.
If the UK goes ahead with plans to ban protests entirely as they saying... those numbers will increase because it won't stop the people and the numbers continue to grow and if you try to stamp it out, there will only be one way it ends... with state authorised violence and death against people protesting the killing of innocent civilians.
That's the road you are on with that attitude, and then you'll be screaming that last line and playing the victim.
People in the UK should vote for non-insane representatives, that would be more helpful
Still waiting on that option 😟
Actually.. If every voted libdem that might work
Ah yes, more power to the rich, that ought to fix it
Tbf to them it's not their fault that the once leftwing party "randomly" decided to put a boneless liberal right before an election that had them winning for sure
I wonder what lobbies and their media have to say about that magic trick
He's not boneless! His dick-bone is well suited for ratfucking the left!
The alternatives who are most likely to take power:
Farage who will abduct and deport my wife.
The Tories who can see Farage being popular with bigots and aiming to be even more cunty.
If I were British I'd vote for the Greens
Yeah. Uh. That's like 25% less helpful for them than it is for the Americans, even if the situation isn't quite as apocalyptic. They'll need to actually do stuff.