[News] Imgur blocked us?! · 12:53pm Feb 8th, 2016
Oh noes what ever shall we do????
I mean, you guys probably already noticed this by now. Site blog and everything about it. Didn't really affect us or anything, since we host our own images and the like, but it's been a little widespread. Unfortunately it looks like people will have to use a different hosting service or something, and I can bet that would really suck, having to go back through what must be countless now-dead images in blogs and posts past. The images still exist and can be viewed directly, so it's not like they're gone forever and can't be recovered, but they can't be seen just browsing Fimfic itself. Unless you have one of those fancy ways of bypassing a block like that, I dunno.
We like to think that we can be that one prevailing voice in the crowd that tries to set some kind of foundation of understanding, but, beyond what Spoiler already slapped together for the article, I personally don't have much else to tell you all or even suggest beyond just sucking it up and switching to a new hosting site. It's dumb and creates a lot of work, but that's just how it goes. People suggested things like Imgbox and Postimage, or just through Sta.sh, or something. Depends on your preferences.
So, what do you think? Is Imgur being unreasonable, here? Are they well within their rights and reason, given how much added strain all that hotlinking creates at no return nor benefit to them? Should knighty encourage an angry letter-writing campaign? Maybe people just need to stop posting so many ponies? (The last question is rhetorical, btw. You can never post too many ponies.)
Stay awesome, guys.
-Minkie, F2P Reporter
>inb4 derpibooru up and blocks us too
derpibooru has been blocking hotlinking for a while now. Not sure if that was a joke, it probably was.
I don't blame them though, pretty much all image hosts went the same way. It's just not sustainable to have people leach humongous amounts of bandwidth for free (act surprised). If you find a host that doesn't punish hotlinking well you're just accelerating their demise.
Fimfic should just add some js that turns hotlinked images into URLs (like they do for images embedded in replies) so they're at least visible and can be clicked upon to go to the website directly. And do this for derpibooru too while they're at it.
Or add some magic that rehosts the offending images on fimfic.net as knighty suggested but that'll probably take a while and basically drive up bandwidth costs for fimfic (who would have guessed?)
I should also probably post this in the actual site news post but meh, it'll probably get lost in the sea if replies anyway and I'm sure knighty/fimfic devs are smart enough to figure this out themselves.
Why am I writing this here then? no idea.
Basically this was expected and has been an issue for every image host since the dawn of time. They start out 'free' with little restrictions until they get popular and bandwidth costs get out of control as they realize nobody's paying the bills.
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That image that FFP posted at the bottom of the article is hotlinked from the Derpibooru Content Delivery Network.
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Oh you're right, it loads on my laptop but not on my desktop PC. Probably got noscript to blame for that. Somehow.
I love how, between Displaced going nuclear and that one guy sexting a minor, THIS is the thing you finally actually write an article on.
3740674 wait, what? Give me the juicy news!
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You expect us to report on stuff people actually care about? Puh-leese. That's just what they expect us to do.
It'll come soon. Probably. Those are rabbit holes that go surprisingly deep...
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3740847 Or the fact a vast majority of members of a "special" group sent dick pics to everyone in there personal skype.