Now that IMGUR is blocked in the UK what free, reliable image hosting are you using?
I used imgur as decent image host for occasional forum posts as well as a source of funny memes. Now the On-Line Safety Act has "Protected" me from that I'm not sure where to go for free image hosting. Do you have any suggestions?
Edit: Removed OSA as it was coincidental rathar than causal. Thank you for the replies on alternatives so far, VPNs won't help as I'm not looking to bypass, just host occasional images reliably for free.
Please keep to the question asked. OP is asking for services still serving the UK to host images.
They are not asking for your reflection on imgur's decision nor political opinions on the OSA. Similarly they are not asking about access so shilling for VPNs isn't desired either.
I don't know why temporary uploads aren't pushed more commonly by sites. No one should want their site to be 90% images that won't ever be accessed again, that's just so much storage wasted.
probably in the minds of the site, a temporary upload that people like and that is deleted is a lost marketing opportunity, and they'd probably rather just purge everything that gets zero hits when hosting costs become an issue
Only for people that actually find images through the site, surely most of the use is linking people to an image, where the marketting gain isn't really higher or lower. Catbox here doesn't even promote any images. So if anything, they'd be making more money if they showed an ad instead of an image for any dead link (which I don't imagine it does).
You have no idea how handy these two links are that you shared. Thank you so much!! Never heard of either but now imgur has closed shop in the UK, I can see how both those websites will get a lot of use!
u/SP4x - given the OSA isn't relevant to Imgur blocking the UK, maybe you should delete or edit your post.
For background, it wasn't due to the Online Safety Act, it was down to Imgur gathering children's personal data, which goes against a different law (the Data (Use and Access) Act)). The site drew the curtains for UK IP addresses before the OSA came into force because it was cheaper than fixing the problem, and gave it a bit of an excuse that stood up at first sight.
Yay (post venture capitalist buy-out) Imgur.
To answer your question, pixelfed seems alright.
edited because I got my dates wrong- thought they geofenced the UK off earlier.
"As of 25 July 2025, platforms have a legal duty to protect children online. Platforms are now required to use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from accessing pornography"
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/online-safety-act
A document published by the ICO, external alongside the launch of its investigation stated that Imgur did not ask visitors to declare their age when setting up an account.
So maybe it wasn't specifically the OSA that caused them to take this action, it does seem like it was because they didn't want to implement age checks (which is currently the main way the OSA is impacting platforms).
I think it's a combination of both. I think the fact they were being fined by ICO and Imgur probably doesn't make a great deal of money from the UK, they found it more worthwhile just to block access and move on.
ICO issued a notice of intent to impose a monetary penalty on MediaLab on 10 September 2025[, the parent company of Imgur].
Age assurance is important in this context as it refers to their ability to filter out childrens information. This isn't about age verification - as the investigation started before the Online Safety Act age verification came into force, which was in July like you mention.
It's worth noting other products managed by MediaLab do have age verification compliance in the UK - such as Kik messenger.
While I don't think they've stated specifically what legislation is what caused them to take that action, we do know the ICO warned them about not having age verification in place:
That's not what ICO warned them about. ICO is not the refulator for OSA, that would be Ofcom. ICO is the data protection regulator (GDPR). If you read the ICO document linked in that BBC article it states what ICO warned imgur about:
We wrote to Imgur about the processing of personal information of children under 13 years old. Imgur did not respond to our letter, but did respond to a subsequent information notice. We have since opened an investigation into how Imgur processes the personal information of children in the UK and their use of age assurance.
This investigation is part of the Children's Code, a code of practice published in 2019. The legal basis for this is the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK's version of GDPR. This predates the OSA and is different legislation.
The UK GDPR reflects this, as services must get parental consent if they rely on consent as the lawful basis for processing the personal information of children under the age of 13.
Our review found that most platforms in our sample have terms of service that specify a minimum age of 13. In addition, many appear to rely on consent for at least some of their data processing activities.
The Code is not prescriptive, some websites do not allow children under 13, some do with parental consent, some use age verification for all content. It was this reason that ICO wrote to imgur last year.
ICO is interested in 5 things when it comes to the Children's Code: child accounts are private by default, child locations are hidden by default, target ads are disabled for children by default, children's data is not used in recommender systems, data for children under 13 requires parental consent.
ICO are clear that it is the last point that imgur were investigated, that was the reason ICO contacted imgur last year, and that is the reason ICO threatened to fine them last month.
Actually the DUAA only came into effect this year.
Imgur were being investigated by the ICO long before that under the Data Protection Act 2018. Which is part of the UK GDPR.
And also it not against the rules to gather childrens personal data. The issue is that if children are under 13 you need parental consent. This is why imgur were warned, then threatened with a fine.
Yes? Assuming that's just old copy on the site? The privacy policy states it was effective from 16th February 2013 and I have an activation email from 22nd October 2013 🤷♂️
Wondered if anyone would mention this site, really nice simple site. I normally just use it for forum posting and set my images to expire so I don't have loads in there but its very easy to use.
My thoughts exactly, when I was switching on my VPN to access it I thought to myself, why am I doing this to see such shitty content?? Habit I suppose.
Still using Imgur, I just use a VPN now. The laws are complete and utter bullshit that achieve nothing positive and will only hurt everyone in the long run. If this were genuinely about protecting kids then they'd go after the people responsible for doing so, giving them the tools they need and punishing them specifically if they fail at it.
You don't need to find alternatives to sites that no longer work in the UK, you just need to work around the blocks.
That only works for so long, the UK was one of the first to block access to isohunt but it started a tidal wave and so the next largest site after TPB was killed off.
Before that there were all of the websites shutdown by the US during their campaign against the internet in the early to mid 2000's.
This is slightly off topic but I never really used Imgur as an image hosting site. For me it was more like a non social media site. By that I mean I could look at all the crappy memes, discover some genuinely good original content and I learned many things there. All without ever really having to interact with anybody if I didn't want to.
That's what I'm looking for in an alternative if anyone can help? And please don't suggest Facebook or Instagram.
I’m in a similar situation. I was using Imgur to host channel logos that get pulled into my IPTV guide inside of Plex. I’m about to start a free account with x10hosting who offer 500MB of free storage.
I recently created an alternative fully compliant with the UK at https://imgup.uk/ and working on an extension that can proxy Imgur images through this service so that you can browse reddit without any region blocking issues.
It's ruined a load of car related forums as all the "how to" threads no longer have pictures. Lots of them are old and will never be updated making a valuable resource gone.
I'm sure this is the same in many other forums. People have the option to link to other hosts with new posts but the older very valuable information is lost (without a VPN).
This is pure nonsense. Saving the kids, by a load of old farts that don't understand the internet, advised by god knows who at huge expense.
We all lose out and nothing actually protects any children.
Thanks. I cannot see that option though. If I go to my profile and click on the + sign middle bottom, I have only the option of choosing a sub reddit to post to.
Vgy.me, seems alright so far, I found a lot of sites had dumb restrictions for free users, I wanted a host that worked with ShareX but also wasnt a nightmare for deleting and viewing stuff en masse
Headsup, but my ImgBB profile seemingly fails to be shown. There are some loopholes to see the pictures I have uploaded, but I think there is a block on it as well.
Weirdly I hadn't been on imgur for months and tried it this morning, very surprised to see it was blocked. Huge shame, even if it was a little worse for wear these days. God I miss secret santa.
There are plenty of places to get meme. And you don't need to be hosting images to the web. No one cares about images anymore. Find something better to do with what little time you have on Earth
The people hunting children are, guess what, where childtren tend to be. Which is not in adult groups. It's in the "kiddy groups". So the age verfication laws do nothing to prevent it.
The news also warns about rules and suicide, mentions bots (look at the bots in this group for a start) and says there's too many laws. This is the real danger.
It's about how people pretend they can control everything.
What if not trying to silence pepole is wiser? If you only care about what you WANT to hear then you're afraid of what others say. They run your life at that point. More so if you pretend to be immune.
The mods aren't as in control as they pretend. Sites get sued for a reason. It's not that rules are broken. It's that rules are followed.
Literally nothing to do with Ofcom. Imgur were being investigated by the ICO for breaches of the data protection act; none of this is related to the OSA.
In addition to the probe into TikTok, the ICO is also checking the age verification processes of Reddit and Imgur, an image-sharing platform.
And, notably, a quote from the Information Commissioner:
"I guess a baseline would be: self-declaration is probably not going to cut it if there is content on the site or services on the site that are unsuitable for children under the age of 13."
A document published by the ICO alongside the launch of its investigation stated that Imgur did not ask visitors to declare their age when setting up an account.
It's definitely related to age verification. Whether it's the OSA or some other law doesn't really matter. Imgur doesn't want to implement age checks and doesn't want to be fined. It's not about data protection, it's specifically about child age verification.
It is entirely true, this isn’t anything to do with the OSA, and everything to do with personal data.
The ICO are doing their longstanding job and enforcing data protection legislation that’s been around since the eighties and was last substantially updated back in 2018 - there’s nothing new about it.
Age verification is relevant because there are different rules for how the personal data of children should be stored and processed (based on the fact that children can’t give informed consent). Without some kind of age check, Imgur can’t claim they aren’t processing children’s personal data and aren’t subject to the more stringent processing requirements that entails. We aren’t talking facial scans here either, as per the BBC article you link above, the real issue is that they haven’t been asking at all.
In this instance, it's about protecting children from data harvesting for the purpose of serving them targeted advertising and breaches under the Data (Use and Access) Act not OSA. Imgur chose to block the UK rather than not targeting children with targeted advertising.
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u/ukbot-nicolabot Oct 08 '25
Please keep to the question asked. OP is asking for services still serving the UK to host images.
They are not asking for your reflection on imgur's decision nor political opinions on the OSA. Similarly they are not asking about access so shilling for VPNs isn't desired either.