# Imgur has blocked images from displaying on SSO



## Hywel

I noticed all my old threads were missing their images so I contacted Imgur.com who I used as an image host and they replied as follows.



> Thanks for writing. Unfortunately that forum has been blocked from hotlinking due to abuse of Imgur's terms of service (Terms of Service - Imgur). Imgur's ToS prohibits using Imgur as a content delivery network, which means that website elements such as buttons, banners, avatars, frames, image libraries, etc. cannot be hosted on Imgur and served up as elements of other sites. Imgur's intended use is not as a CDN, but rather as a platform to upload, share and browse entertaining images, which is why using it to serve website elements or image libraries is not allowed.
> 
> Please also be aware, that any forum that has a section dedicated to selling, such as classified are also against the advertising portion of the TOS.
> 
> If you'd like to be unblocked, please take measures to undo the functionality that caused the terms of service breach, at which point we'd be happy to review.
> 
> Please let me know if you have any other questions; I'd be happy to help.
> 
> Best,
> Isaac K.


Which sucks. So just a heads up to anyone who noticed their pics weren't working.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Thanks for the heads up. I noticed that mine were all gone too. 

I've never been signed up on imgur... Anyone know if signing up would restore privileges to be able to link here on sso? 

Sucks though.


----------



## ferret

When images are linked her, imgur sees SSO as the referrer. So even if you have a personal account they still know SSO is where it was linked and they then block it.


----------



## Xcaliber

The "classified" restriction seems so stupid, but I'm sure it's a legal thing. Something about being liable for a transaction that goes wrong or something.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Gotcha.. thought so, but wanted to be sure. ...ugh.


----------



## takotakumi

Thanks for the heads up. No wonder lots of pics were not working.

what are some alternatives to imgur?


----------



## ferret

I've used photobucket.

imgur should also still work as long as you leave a link to it in your post, instead of embedding.


----------



## takotakumi

ferret said:


> I've used photobucket.
> 
> imgur should also still work as long as you leave a link to it in your post, instead of embedding.



Thanks fellow atlien!


----------



## WhiskeyPickleJake

That explains a lot of boring threads


----------



## Tree

WhiskeyPickleJake said:


> That explains a lot of boring threads



I thought it was just my phone at first. That totally sucks. If I were ever feeling nostalgic and wanted to go back and look at guitars I no longer I have I cant now?


----------



## Mike

Fvck Imgur.


----------



## asher

Mike said:


> Fvck Imgur.



Seriously, wtf.


----------



## Alex Kenivel

Glad I went with Photobucket..


----------



## AliceLG

Welp, so that's why all my images are gone


----------



## HighGain510

Thanks for pointing this out! I thought my phone was being stupid, I had tried to hard reboot and it was still just showing empty boxes.  Funny how many people were using imgur it seems!


----------



## Rachmaninoff

Hywel said:


> Imgur's ToS prohibits using Imgur as a content delivery network, which means that website elements such as buttons, banners, avatars, frames, image libraries, etc. cannot be hosted on Imgur and served up as elements of other sites.



So... is the SevenString forum really doing this? If so, Imgur is right, it's SS fault...


----------



## Mike

Rachmaninoff said:


> So... is the SevenString forum really doing this? If so, Imgur is right, it's SS fault...



No it's not that part. SS.org's site imagery, buttons, and content are hosted on its own server.

It's this part that apparently has caused a violation:
"Please also be aware, that any forum that has a section dedicated to selling, such as classified are also against the advertising portion of the TOS."


----------



## Rachmaninoff

Mike said:


> No it's not that part. SS.org's site imagery, buttons, and content are hosted on its own server.
> 
> It's this part that apparently has caused a violation:
> "Please also be aware, that any forum that has a section dedicated to selling, such as classified are also against the advertising portion of the TOS."



So... maybe the forum should advice (or even actively block) users from hotlink images at the classified sections, then report it back to Imgur? It would be a way to unblock the use of images on the rest of the forum.


----------



## Randy

Tinypic or gtfo


----------



## Promit

Facebook and Google work fine for uploads, too.


----------



## Xaios

Rachmaninoff said:


> So... maybe the forum should advice (or even actively block) users from hotlink images at the classified sections, then report it back to Imgur? It would be a way to unblock the use of images on the rest of the forum.



Nope, wouldn't do it. The only way to satisfy Imgur would be to remove the classified section completely, something which obviously isn't gonna happen.


----------



## technomancer

Xaios said:


> Nope, wouldn't do it. The only way to satisfy Imgur would be to remove the classified section completely, something which obviously isn't gonna happen.



And also not to embed their images in your posts. Bottom line imgur only wants you viewing images they're hosting on their site.


----------



## vansinn

Mike said:


> Fvck Imgur.



No, it's actually very understandable they have such Terms of Use, and are defending them.

All references to a site, as in this case, using imgur as a placeholder, will cause extra traffic for them, which require more bandwidth, which they must pay for.
They get no Return of Investment, as using them hardly even gets noticed by visitors or 'us' in here - except maybe that some briefly will see the referral on the browser status line (if we even has this feature enabled).

It is of course annoying for those using them.
Perhaps if all dropped out of things like loading avatars and other not-really-needed actions, they and others might be less stringent about this..


----------



## mnemonic

sli.mg works well as an alternative, light-weight and easy to use, no account needed, images aren't deleted, etc. 

Imgur's upload page is really busy these days anyway, really slows my computer down when I try uploading anything.


----------



## pondman

I stopped using Imgur ages ago because of its temperamental faults.


----------



## wigger

How about adding something like



Code:


<meta name="referrer" content="no-referrer" />


to all sites on sevenstring.org? This will force all visiting browser to leave the referer empty (see Remove http referer - Stack Overflow for more information). This way imgur won't be able to block images displayed on sevenstring.org.


----------



## feraledge

Glad to see this thread though frustrating to see why. I have always used photobucket, but uploads take ages and the ads are super annoying. Was getting really frustrated trying to figure it out yesterday. 
BTW, if you want to pull up an image, "open image in new tab" then highlight the url and hit enter and it will come up. Apparently that second loading nixes the SSO link. Frustrating. Back to photobucket....


----------



## ElRay

Has anybody tried the "official" javascript:


Code:


<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="imgurID" data-context="false">
     <a href="//imgur.com/cbGGCyq">View post on imgur.com</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


This supposedly works, complete with the imgur frame, etc.


----------

