Replacement for imgur?

johnraff · 2024-09-14 06:59:10

Imgur's been a bit strange lately
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 70#p138170
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04 … ext-month/

They might be in the process of deleting anonymous uploads that haven't been getting a lot of views, potentially gutting some of our tutorials. First thing we have to do is back up as many of those images as possible, soon.

Then find a possible replacement.
Of course users are free to use whatever image hosting services they like, but BL has two specific needs I think:

1) "Official" tutorials. It doesn't matter if the upload interface is easy or difficult, graphical or CLI because it's only BL devs who will be using it. It would be nice if the hosting service was reliable though. For this, uploads don't have to be anonymous - we could create a BunsenLabs account.

2) The "Screenshot + Upload" menu item & file manager right-click action + script. This needs an image host that allows direct scripted anonymous uploads, so that it works out of the box for any user. An internet API. Not all have this.

Here's a list https://www.alphr.com/imgur-alternatives/ but of course there are others.

Or, once we've backed up our images, go on using Imgur?

Comments?

Last edited by johnraff (2024-09-14 07:01:10)

micko01 · 2024-09-14 07:19:37

I think use GitHub (or similar, gitlab, codeberg) for 'official' tutorials.

I was geo-blocked from creating a proper imgur account but logged in with google (yuk) but seems to work fine. All my recent uploads still seem to work including the latest today. First was in June when hacking on the imgur-upload script for wayland https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 22#p135422

johnraff · 2024-09-14 07:38:11

^Yes your image displays OK, though I notice recently a lot of imgur links no longer go to the fullsized image - even after a click it's still embedded in an Imgur page.

For some reason, this anonymously uploaded screenshot thumbnail links straight to the full-sized image:

(made with our script bl-image-upload)

But this one goes to an embedded image which even after a click is still embedded, not full-sized:

(made with xfce4-screenshooter)

We should backup as much as possible to GitHub (or somewhere) IMO, but I don't think it would be appropriate to link to the backed-up images directly in forum posts. It might even be against the TOS to use them as an image server.

Last edited by johnraff (2024-09-14 07:42:28)

brontosaurusrex · 2024-09-14 15:09:48

^ For me they both land on the embeded version. Been testing imgbox.com, https://brontosaurusrex.github.io/2024/ … sting-123/

johnraff · 2024-09-15 06:09:07

brontosaurusrex wrote:

^ For me they both land on the embeded version.

Now, me too.

But a new discovery: the embedded image has a "download" option to bring down the full-sized image, and - unlike in a BL forum post - Firefox's "Open Image in New Tab" works, and the image is full-sized (Fx shrinks it to fit the window, but a click will expand it).

So all is not lost, at least yet.
And let's keep Imgbox in mind.
Damo also made an imgbb upload script that might still work (bl-imgbb-upload) but it requires user to have an account.

Anyway, for images in "official" tutorials etc BL could create an account if necessary, so almost any image hosting service should work. We can pick whichever one looks most reliable and doesn't pester viewers with ads too much.

For our user utilities we need a service that has a web API and allows anonymous uploads.

hhh · 2024-09-15 06:19:44

https://imgbb.com/

https://bashify.io/

?

DeepDayze · 2024-09-15 14:59:46

johnraff wrote:

brontosaurusrex wrote:
^ For me they both land on the embeded version.
Now, me too.
But a new discovery: the embedded image has a "download" option to bring down the full-sized image, and - unlike in a BL forum post - Firefox's "Open Image in New Tab" works, and the image is full-sized (Fx shrinks it to fit the window, but a click will expand it).
So all is not lost, at least yet.
And let's keep Imgbox in mind.
Damo also made an imgbb upload script that might still work (bl-imgbb-upload) but it requires user to have an account.
Anyway, for images in "official" tutorials etc BL could create an account if necessary, so almost any image hosting service should work. We can pick whichever one looks most reliable and doesn't pester viewers with ads too much.
For our user utilities we need a service that has a web API and allows anonymous uploads.

One trick might be to grab the uploads from that anonymous user and copy it to the BL account to host the tutorial but the hard part is adjusting the links to the images once they move from the anonymous image pool to the BL image pool.

Keep in mind that those other services might change their policies in regards to anonymous uploads like Imgur did.

johnraff · 2024-09-16 06:08:34

I think as long as BL keep a backup of important images - like those used in tutorials - then we can go on using whatever 3rd party service to actually host the images used in posts. Just be ready to step in with a replacement if it stops working. And keep an eye on the backups too!

DeepDayze wrote:

One trick might be to grab the uploads from that anonymous user and copy it to the BL account to host the tutorial but the hard part is adjusting the links to the images once they move from the anonymous image pool to the BL image pool.

Yes restoring a backed-up image to replace one lost for whatever reason will mean having to rewrite the url, probably by hand. So we can't be responsible for maintaining hundreds of posts this way - just the important ones.

r.chaffee53 · 2024-10-08 15:27:24

Something is still happening at imgur.

A transparent spacer, 90x1px, was used to center images in my last project. That is up until finishing Part Five. The same spacer image no longer centered the main image correctly; it fell a little short of where the image should have landed. So a added four or five spaces. A real puzzle. Works in the first part of the tutorial, just not in Part Five.

All I can think of, I uploaded two transpARENT IMAGES (fat fingers) in the testing section of the 'inrto to desktop thread'. An image of that post with the matching links:

The smaller one is four or five spaces shorter. Could imgur have mistaken one for the other? Oh and I had never used the shorter one anywhere in my posts, except the one shown here.

Anyway, is there something I can do to help get the image backup project further along. The peace of mind is intensive to create more images. Something weird is happening at imgur. My next project, "Ways to install bunsenlabs" has many images, 20 so far.
Please, what the correct capitalization on bunsenlabs, BunsenLabs, Bunsen Labs,... ?

Back on topic:

johnraff wrote:

First we need to decide on the best naming scheme and directory structure - maybe not as simple as it looks. That's a topic for a new thread.

Suggest to keep the same image name as imgur uses. Dir names, name of the tutorial possibly abbreviated, plus the author.

Bob - spelled the same backwards

Last edited by r.chaffee53 (2024-10-08 19:40:28)

r.chaffee53 · 2024-10-08 16:12:35

Something that might be useful is to retrieve 'lost' images with the 'save link as' dialog that brings back those images, as discovered by @johnraff.

From the hhh tutorial, https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=518, which is probably to old to be of any use, a retrieved image:

I happened to reference that thread because I'm harvesting good ideas and copy. TY hhh.

What's needed is a list of tutorials to save; doesn't have to be a complete list, just a few to start off.

Bob - wearing out the 'b' key since 1953.

Edit: Backup collection started here.

Last edited by r.chaffee53 (2024-10-08 18:17:44)

johnraff · 2024-10-09 02:39:28

r.chaffee53 wrote:

johnraff wrote:
First we need to decide on the best naming scheme and directory structure - maybe not as simple as it looks. That's a topic for a new thread.
Suggest to keep the same image name as imgur uses. Dir names, name of the tutorial possibly abbreviated, plus the author.

I'm quite busy today and the next few days going forward, but I can see you're taking this with some urgency and I'll at least start the discussion thread today.

johnraff · 2024-10-09 07:31:27

Discussion on image archive structure: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=9185

johnraff · 2024-10-10 07:34:55

r.chaffee53 wrote:

A transparent spacer, 90x1px, was used to center images in my last project. That is up until finishing Part Five. The same spacer image no longer centered the main image correctly; it fell a little short of where the image should have landed. So a added four or five spaces. A real puzzle. Works in the first part of the tutorial, just not in Part Five.
All I can think of, I uploaded two transpARENT IMAGES (fat fingers) in the testing section of the 'inrto to desktop thread'. An image of that post with the matching links:
https://i.imgur.com/R7lt0Gp.png
The smaller one is four or five spaces shorter. Could imgur have mistaken one for the other? Oh and I had never used the shorter one anywhere in my posts, except the one shown here.

It might be the forum software - I've had trouble with spaces, indenting and alignment in the past because of how the BB code is converted into html. Maybe you'd get some insight into what's happening if you have a look at the html of the page in question. (Firefox Ctrl+U)

what the correct capitalization on bunsenlabs, BunsenLabs, Bunsen Labs,... ?

The "official" capitalization is BunsenLabs, but bunsenlabs is sometimes used eg inside code.

brontosaurusrex · 2024-10-10 08:37:45

Are there any options to run our own image hosting (like the one that was used with scrot.moe)? I imagine it would have to be limited to this.forum users only....
p.s. Anyone remembers what software was that?

johnraff · 2024-10-10 09:44:35

Image hosting is fraught with danger - think porn, hidden metadata...
I don't know what eventually brought scrot.moe down, but this is something I'd rather leave for the big boys to handle.

Feel free to set one up though...

r.chaffee53 · 2024-10-10 15:58:47

Moved to the correct thread.

Bob

Last edited by r.chaffee53 (2024-10-10 20:00:57)

DeepDayze · 2024-10-13 15:23:40

johnraff wrote:

Image hosting is fraught with danger - think porn, hidden metadata...
I don't know what eventually brought scrot.moe down, but this is something I'd rather leave for the big boys to handle.
Feel free to set one up though...

Scrot.moe was great while it lasted..what a shame some fool (most likely from outside this forum) had to ruin it for us

But I digress. What about ibb.co?

Last edited by DeepDayze (2024-10-13 15:25:16)

johnraff · 2024-10-15 00:44:00

brontosaurusrex wrote:

Are there any options to run our own image hosting (like the one that was used with scrot.moe)? I imagine it would have to be limited to this.forum users only....

Just thought... while an image hosting service is complicated, we might be able to provide the tutorial images on a read-only server, the same way we have isos for download? That might not be so dangerous. No user uploads, just a small set of images uploaded by devs for the official BL tutorials only.

So urls could keep the same image names and just switch from eg:

https://imgur.com/R7lt0Gp

to something like:

https://ddl.bunsenlabs.org/img/R7lt0Gp

Our server is getting pretty full though, so need to check how much free space there is and how much room those images would take up.

So @Bronto, thanks for the idea!

hhh · 2024-10-15 16:38:36

johnraff wrote:

I don't know what eventually brought scrot.moe down...

mrneilypops was pretty vague, but it doesn't seem nefarious...

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 054#p94054

johnraff · 2024-10-17 05:58:10

johnraff wrote:

Just thought... while an image hosting service is complicated, we might be able to provide the tutorial images on a read-only server, the same way we have isos for download? That might not be so dangerous. No user uploads, just a small set of images uploaded by devs for the official BL tutorials only.

Proof of concept:

This thumbnail and fullsized image link are both on imgur:

These images are both on our server:

Our server is getting pretty full though, so need to check how much free space there is and how much room those images would take up.

There's 11G of free space and each image is in the region 20k ~ 150k and I reckon total 100~200MB, so it looks enough.

NOTE that our server will block direct downloads with wget, just as Imgur do. Only requests via the forum page will work. You can still use Firefox's "save image" to get a local copy.

Last edited by johnraff (2024-10-18 05:39:21)

#1 2024-09-14 06:59:10

Replacement for imgur?

#2 2024-09-14 07:19:37

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#3 2024-09-14 07:38:11

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#4 2024-09-14 15:09:48

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#5 2024-09-15 06:09:07

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#6 2024-09-15 06:19:44

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#7 2024-09-15 14:59:46

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#8 2024-09-16 06:08:34

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#9 2024-10-08 15:27:24

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#10 2024-10-08 16:12:35

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#11 2024-10-09 02:39:28

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#12 2024-10-09 07:31:27

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#13 2024-10-10 07:34:55

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#14 2024-10-10 08:37:45

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#15 2024-10-10 09:44:35

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#16 2024-10-10 15:58:47

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#17 2024-10-13 15:23:40

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#18 2024-10-15 00:44:00

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#19 2024-10-15 16:38:36

Re: Replacement for imgur?

#20 2024-10-17 05:58:10

Re: Replacement for imgur?

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