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10 October 2006

Public Service announcement for image linkers: I've been noticing quite a lot of image links that aren't showing up on pages. Some of you are hotlinking images, and you don't realize that they often don't show up for the rest of us because they are in your computer's cache memory... So you see them, but nobody else does. [More:]

Most sites that host a lot of image files (particularly popular humor, anime and other pop culture kinds of stuff) protect themselves from bandwidth drain by disabling image views except by on-site users. So you've gone to the site and viewed the image, which means your computer remembers the image, and when you pop a link to it here, you see it - but we don't. Or sometimes a (usually rude) substitute image will replace it.

To avoid this happening, it's better if you use a free image hosting service and store the images you want to link there. I use photobucket, because it's been quite reliable (with generous bandwidth and storage limits), and you can upload files from your own computer or from a url.

For more info on images and hotlinking, have a look at the wiki.
post by: taz at: 07:11 | 5 comments
How about the pink bunny? Has it been showing up as intended?
posted by pieisexactlythree 10 October | 09:29
Heh. The pink bunny has been showing up, pi; rest easy.
posted by taz 10 October | 09:31
heh.
posted by taz 10 October | 10:26
I've said it before and I'll say it again - hotlinking is bad. When you do it, you deserve whatever humiliation you get when a nasty image is substituted for the one you intended, particularly when you link it somewhere that will add a gazillion hits to the site that you linked it from (such as when you hotlink an image in a MeFi thread). Remember, hotlink bad, off-site hosting good.
posted by dg 10 October | 17:13
Once upon a time, || My beard smelled like pumpkin this morning

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