This is going to be a 'Douche of the Day' award post that I usually do on my Wordpress blog.
I was a happy Photobucket user for 11 years. That's a long time to stick with a service so they were obviously a good one. I was completely happy with the services provided on my free account and a couple of times, I made use of the print store in order to make custom gifts for loved ones for various occasions. Then all of a sudden, in 2017, they start sending me nagware. For those unfamiliar, nagware consists of popups/emails/messages etc that 'nag' you to buy their product. It's irritating, true, but not a deal breaker since I had a free account. I just unsubscribed to the nagmails and just put up with it on the site.
Then, however, Photobucket decided to do something I consider to be truly despicable. They made it to where you CANNOT download your photo albums (for backup or for account changes). They actually REMOVED the download album links. Why is that particularly awful? You've likely heard of something called ransomware, where criminally minded people will hack your system and hold your files for ransom. If you pay, you get your files back. Sound familiar? Photobucket has actually decided that holding people's cherished memories hostage will force them to upgrade to one of their paid plans. Sounds pretty messed up, right? But, Pariah..(you might say) that's a pretty seriously defaming thing to say about Photobucket. And you would be correct. It's something I rarely do (you can check to see how many actual 'Douche of the Day' posts I've made on my Wordpress blog to see that it's not often that I do this. That is how truly despicable I believe this to be.
Photobucket, you are no better than ransomware hackers and it's certainly morally deficient. Of course, since one can download each photo in their library ONE AT A TIME, they can claim they are doing no such thing..but let's not forget, they removed the download album links, which don't come back unless you upgrade your account. Super douchey. In addition to this ridiculousness, 90% of forum posted pictures just stopped working as Photobucket demanded 400 dollars for the privilege to see them. Many desperate and the more computer illiterate people have already likely paid their ransom. Someone made a Chrome extension for this issue and it lives here Photobucket Hotlink Fix. It's completely legit and working as of this post. I saw some small mention of Photobucket taking a back step and allowing people to hot link with the $99 plan but i didn't see that in the plan list so that I cannot confirm.
For the moment, I was able to download the photobucket phone app for Android that lives here but there isn't an iphone version. It is working at this time for downloading albums. They have a desktop app that lives here but I didn't test it and I am not sure whether or not the same capability exists (one would assume, but one never knows)
As for downloading my albums from the Android app, the process is straightforward, BUT i had to retry each album download many many times before the download would go through. That's always been an issue with Photobucket. Their website is slower than molasses sitting in a jar on a perfectly level table and always has been. Try to delete 5 photos? Maybe you will, maybe you won't. For my free account, how could I complain though? I did manage to get my albums onto my phone after scores of retries (I had about 20 albums but not that many pictures--maybe around 300) Download failure after download failure but I persevered and now have the pics backed up in my usual 3 point system (which Photobucket will no longer be included in) and then as soon as I was done, I deleted my account. There was the usual 'but whyyy' screen that popped up and I unloaded on them about their poor decision and how disgusted I was by their greasy attempt to extort their users, many of which had been users for a decade or more.
Which brings me to the inevitable..but Pariah, your account was free! You can't gripe about a free account! True enough, I say. I could have, and since have, gone to someone else. The thing is though, I had 10 delicious GB of storage with which to keep my pictures safe and sound and it was easy peasy to share, hotlink etc..everyone liked Photobucket (except for the slow website.) However, had Photobucket asked me nicely to pay a subscription of say, $3 a month, I likely would have done it. I TRUSTED them. I LIKED them. I trusted them and they pulled a ransomware stunt on me. So I am absolutely going to gripe about this and about their foot shooting idea that has probably cost them millions in the short time since this issue went viral. Consequences, you know?
To sum up, Photobucket, you have totally earned my Douche of the Day award. Enjoy it..it's worth about as much as your company will be after this. Even if you completely reversed your position and I had my 10GB of storage back with hotlinking all for free, I wouldn't come back. You screwed me and millions (yes, millions of people use --used?-- Photobucket) of other happy Photobucket users.
I was a happy Photobucket user for 11 years. That's a long time to stick with a service so they were obviously a good one. I was completely happy with the services provided on my free account and a couple of times, I made use of the print store in order to make custom gifts for loved ones for various occasions. Then all of a sudden, in 2017, they start sending me nagware. For those unfamiliar, nagware consists of popups/emails/messages etc that 'nag' you to buy their product. It's irritating, true, but not a deal breaker since I had a free account. I just unsubscribed to the nagmails and just put up with it on the site.
Then, however, Photobucket decided to do something I consider to be truly despicable. They made it to where you CANNOT download your photo albums (for backup or for account changes). They actually REMOVED the download album links. Why is that particularly awful? You've likely heard of something called ransomware, where criminally minded people will hack your system and hold your files for ransom. If you pay, you get your files back. Sound familiar? Photobucket has actually decided that holding people's cherished memories hostage will force them to upgrade to one of their paid plans. Sounds pretty messed up, right? But, Pariah..(you might say) that's a pretty seriously defaming thing to say about Photobucket. And you would be correct. It's something I rarely do (you can check to see how many actual 'Douche of the Day' posts I've made on my Wordpress blog to see that it's not often that I do this. That is how truly despicable I believe this to be.
Photobucket, you are no better than ransomware hackers and it's certainly morally deficient. Of course, since one can download each photo in their library ONE AT A TIME, they can claim they are doing no such thing..but let's not forget, they removed the download album links, which don't come back unless you upgrade your account. Super douchey. In addition to this ridiculousness, 90% of forum posted pictures just stopped working as Photobucket demanded 400 dollars for the privilege to see them. Many desperate and the more computer illiterate people have already likely paid their ransom. Someone made a Chrome extension for this issue and it lives here Photobucket Hotlink Fix. It's completely legit and working as of this post. I saw some small mention of Photobucket taking a back step and allowing people to hot link with the $99 plan but i didn't see that in the plan list so that I cannot confirm.
For the moment, I was able to download the photobucket phone app for Android that lives here but there isn't an iphone version. It is working at this time for downloading albums. They have a desktop app that lives here but I didn't test it and I am not sure whether or not the same capability exists (one would assume, but one never knows)
As for downloading my albums from the Android app, the process is straightforward, BUT i had to retry each album download many many times before the download would go through. That's always been an issue with Photobucket. Their website is slower than molasses sitting in a jar on a perfectly level table and always has been. Try to delete 5 photos? Maybe you will, maybe you won't. For my free account, how could I complain though? I did manage to get my albums onto my phone after scores of retries (I had about 20 albums but not that many pictures--maybe around 300) Download failure after download failure but I persevered and now have the pics backed up in my usual 3 point system (which Photobucket will no longer be included in) and then as soon as I was done, I deleted my account. There was the usual 'but whyyy' screen that popped up and I unloaded on them about their poor decision and how disgusted I was by their greasy attempt to extort their users, many of which had been users for a decade or more.
Which brings me to the inevitable..but Pariah, your account was free! You can't gripe about a free account! True enough, I say. I could have, and since have, gone to someone else. The thing is though, I had 10 delicious GB of storage with which to keep my pictures safe and sound and it was easy peasy to share, hotlink etc..everyone liked Photobucket (except for the slow website.) However, had Photobucket asked me nicely to pay a subscription of say, $3 a month, I likely would have done it. I TRUSTED them. I LIKED them. I trusted them and they pulled a ransomware stunt on me. So I am absolutely going to gripe about this and about their foot shooting idea that has probably cost them millions in the short time since this issue went viral. Consequences, you know?
To sum up, Photobucket, you have totally earned my Douche of the Day award. Enjoy it..it's worth about as much as your company will be after this. Even if you completely reversed your position and I had my 10GB of storage back with hotlinking all for free, I wouldn't come back. You screwed me and millions (yes, millions of people use --used?-- Photobucket) of other happy Photobucket users.
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