Image hotlinking... why?

Cambofrog · 28 Jun 2008 at 20:16

Why do people hotlink to images used in threads on this forum?

This often involves threads being closed. Once you have found an image, it usually takes all of 30-60 seconds to rehost that image on somewhere like imageshack

Just do it

Cambofrog · 28 Jun 2008 at 20:26

blitz2163 said:
because people are lazy and that extra 30-60secs just means most people will either risk the hotlink or not bother posting

I know, but for the sake of 30-60 seconds, that's more than lazy :eek:

Cambofrog · 28 Jun 2008 at 20:38

Zefan said:
Yes but when the 8,000 regular members load a thread with a picture linked from another site they aren't likely to be happy about the bandwidth.

:edit: The below reasons too

Exacltly, just use a site that wants you to use their bandwidth for downloading images, and won't change that image to something undesirable later.

Cambofrog · 28 Jun 2008 at 20:44

fail at the internets said:
If you put something on the internet surely you expect that your content will be viewed and as such shouldn't be able to moan once people do.. No hotlinking rule is silly imo.

Yes, but often that image will be inline within a web page. They want you to view that image within the context of their web page, and not hotlinked, which is simply stealing their bandwidth.

Cambofrog · 28 Jun 2008 at 21:07

LoadsaMoney said:
and you got put in charge when ?

I'm not in charge yet, but I'm working on it

Cambofrog · 28 Jun 2008 at 22:31

jas72 said:
If you put up a funny picture then people will link to it. Explain the difference between hotlinking and posting the URL? going to the site will use up more bandwidth than the picture alone.

Moral is don't link to a funny mem if you are on bandwidth limits.

You are missing the point. You don't have to give a URL to the page containing the image you want to display, or a direct URL to the image on that page.

It goes like this (without browser plugin).

1) Find the image you want (you have to do this anyway, if you want to hotlink or not).

2) Download the image to your hard drive.

3) Upload the image to a dedicated image hosting site.

4) Post the given URL within IMG tags in to your forum posts (you have to do this anyway, if you want to hotlink or not).

5) Delete downloaded image from your hard drive.

Job done