I've been a long time Flickr user and I'm searching for a good alternative. IF it exists lol.

Important would be:

• unmetered bandwidth
• being able to set privat/public photo access
• direct linking to images
• between 1 GB and 5 GB space (being able to buy via PayPal more space later?)
• provider should exist longer than a year lol
• quick export possibility for backups
• sexy UI just like Flickr lol

I know of Google's Picasaweb but it's not reliable enough for me. Reloading pages 20 times just to make photos appear (direct linking) is not a solution. And one GB space is way to less. I know I can buy more, but I wouldn't want to give Google my credit card # (bad enough that PayPal has it lol).

Imagehack Pro is nice but $8/month compared to Flickr (Unlimited uploads and storage, unlimited bandwidth -> 25 USD/year) it is a bit expensive


Any suggestions? Thank you

http://photobucket.com/
http://tinypic.com/
http://www.esnips.com/

take your pick

Photobucket and TinyPic (both same company) is too slow loading. Sorry, I should have mentioned them in my first post. But eSnips looks interesting. Never heard of it before.

Thank you

You can also check out http://www.keapr.com
It's a pretty new service though and I believe it doesn't have all the feature you're looking for.

I use for over 2 years (member since 2006-12-04) http://imageshack.us/ (free account) and I'm very happy with what they offer.

From your list:

• unmetered bandwidth (check)
• being able to set privat/public photo access (check)
• direct linking to images (check)
• between 1 GB and 5 GB space (being able to buy via PayPal more space later?) (I didn't had any problems regarding space ... but I don't think there is a limit)
• provider should exist longer than a year lol (check)
• quick export possibility for backups (I never used this, I don't know ...)
• sexy UI just like Flickr lol (I never used Flickr, but I like the interface that imageshack offers)

LE: You could also check ImageShack tools: http://reg.imageshack.us/content.php?page=features , very useful tools.

@darknyndy

You've just saved me a post, was just about to ask the forum for their experiences of image hosting services (preferably free !!) ...

Btw Love your signature (subtle or what !!)

imageshack randomly doesn't load pictures for me quite often.. always hated it for that.

@Waha

So which one do you use ?

@Waha - if you use "Modern View" and you don't have a very good connection is very possible (I've encountered this when I had slow ISP).

But you can switch to "Classic View" and there the load time is small and I didn't encountered any problems no mater the ISP. With classic view you also have two options "Thumb View · List View"

Thank you guys for your time. Unfortunately, Keapr.com doesn't officially support direct linking. But it seems to be a fast service, so it's probably enough for "not important" images. Thanks for that

Regarding Imageshack. I love the service. But it's having way too many uptime problems in the last couple of months. Then the images sometimes aren't getting displayed at all. Disturbing, but probably their paid service is way better?! Only problem is that it's way too expensive. 8 dollars each month is freaky expensive in my opinion. And then no real export and an ugly UI.

Why I want to move away from Flickr? Flickr is - like I wrote - an excellent image hosting service. No bandwidth restriction and I've never ever encountered uptime problems. Problem is that it's Yahoo. Not that I would hate Yahoo (well I do lol)... I read that Yahoo's gonna merge Flickr more and more into Yahoo services.. so it's (in my opinion) just a matter of time until Flickr is getting the "typical ugly Yahoo" UI. So... that's why I am already searching for an alternative.

But somehow it seems that there is no real alternative (for me) out there