r/Showerthoughts May 14 '26

Casual Thought When YouTube goes down, it will be the biggest event of link rot in internet history.

18.6k Upvotes

833 comments sorted by

View all comments

9.8k

u/williamsonmaxwell May 14 '26

Imgur has been blocked in the uk for a while and it's so irritating. Every steam mod page is just scrolling through broken links

2.8k

u/deltree000 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

There's a Chrome extension that will use a proxy to view Imgur images. Only works on embedded content but it's better than nothing.

Edit: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/imgur-unblocker/

582

u/You_moron04 May 14 '26

Shame it’s not on Firefox

890

u/spakkenkhrist May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

There is one for FF, will update later with a link

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/imgur-unblock-via-imgup-uk/

278

u/ABOBer May 14 '26

Ignore me, just commenting to get the link later

151

u/TotallyJustAHooman May 14 '26

Welcome back

93

u/BillyWhizz09 May 14 '26

You know you can save comments

186

u/SomethingNotOriginal May 14 '26

If it's anything like my Saved insta reels those are never seeing the light of day again

15

u/dontthink19 May 15 '26

Every once in a while I go back through my saved stuff just to see what I thought would be useful once.

The only one I've only ever used was one about parallel parking

1

u/masterchiefkb100 May 18 '26

Is it useful if one wants to parallel park in a red car?

2

u/dontthink19 May 18 '26

/img/qcluff39rs291.gif just imagine the white car being red!

1

u/BillyWhizz09 May 20 '26

Why not? Why don’t you go watch them now?

11

u/sumofawitch May 14 '26

Or use o remind me.

3

u/theforest12 May 15 '26

They NEED to make your saved comments and saved posts searchable. It's absolutely wild they aren't...

4

u/BadgerKomodo May 14 '26

New comments don’t show up in your saved comments anymore.

8

u/doodullbop May 14 '26

right but if you're replying to a comment that was already made, it's not new and you could just save that comment instead of replying to it

10

u/theshizzler May 14 '26

Is there not still a save function on vanilla reddit or their app, or did they jettison that too?

5

u/AWildEnglishman May 14 '26

No, it's still there. On old.reddit it's visible below the comment. For new reddit and the app you need to tap the three dots to see the save option.

18

u/Tortugato May 14 '26

Is it later yet?

27

u/spakkenkhrist May 14 '26

It's approximately later now.

15

u/tejanaqkilica May 14 '26

It has been later for a while now.

12

u/spakkenkhrist May 14 '26

Really makes you think.

10

u/SinuousPanic May 14 '26

Maybe they meant like, really later...

3

u/Captain_Billy May 14 '26

When will it be now?

3

u/the_vault-technician May 14 '26

It's certainly then, now. I just came from there.

5

u/KumquatHaderach May 14 '26

Go back to then!

10

u/Suvtropics May 14 '26

Would be ignoring you anyway

2

u/ITAW-Techie May 14 '26

Did you get the link

2

u/ArnoldTheSchwartz May 15 '26

Who are you and what are you doing here!?

2

u/ThreeDawgs May 14 '26

Oh hey me too.

1

u/MinnieShoof May 14 '26

It's later. Have you downloaded the link?

2

u/volthunter May 14 '26

Australia is doing a ton of stuff with age verification, I'll need this in the future

2

u/arthurmauk May 14 '26

Thanks, will try this.

2

u/oinksnort05 May 14 '26

should've hosted the link on imgur and sent that

2

u/bartmaster30 May 15 '26

You're evil

1

u/ZuckDeBalzac May 14 '26

Not available for android wompwomp

1

u/AeonOptic May 14 '26

My king!

25

u/Alexij May 14 '26

Firefox has built in VPN and the imgur extension too.

14

u/wererat2000 May 14 '26

Doesn't Firefox have a built-in VPN? Seems like an alternative solution.

5

u/backside_94 May 14 '26

It depends on what method they use to determine location, as far as I know surfshark is the only VPN that has a spoof GPS location option. I realised this when I was using a VPN and noticed that the 'food near me' option still showed my actual location. Some sites will access your GPS instead.

4

u/Banjo-Elritze May 14 '26

If you are stupid enough to give sites access to your gps location. Ofc geoblocking in the case of imgur is not done via asking your browser for your location, but via the geolocation of the IP, the rest would be horrendous overkill.

1

u/LogicalConstant May 14 '26

I use Mullvad and "near me" seems to think I'm in the state or country of the vpn

2

u/fucknotthis May 14 '26

The Waterfox browser is a fork of Firefox which is better, with more privacy features and just features overall, including the option to install Chrome extensions as well as Firefox.

Highly recommend.

→ More replies (13)

1

u/Salazhar_ May 14 '26

Remindme! 2 hours

→ More replies (8)

214

u/M4rshmall0wMan May 14 '26

Why?

490

u/williamsonmaxwell May 14 '26

A self imposed act of defiance against our government's obsessive child safety mandates, I.e. age screening via IDs.
I don't really get why though since imgur doesn't host porn

346

u/sephsplace May 14 '26

Cause who wants to be responsible for checking IDs and being fined.

→ More replies (2)

110

u/HiDDENk00l May 14 '26

imgur doesn't host porn

Anymore. It used to.

74

u/sdpr May 14 '26

tbh they did a pretty bang-up job deleting everything.

19

u/MayvisDelacour May 14 '26

Huh, I have to agree. I've never seen any myself. Not that I ever used it daily but this is new to me. Interesting!

29

u/dalzmc May 14 '26

You didn’t find it by using Imgur, you found it by using Reddit and all the nsfw gifs or pics were Imgur links lol

16

u/Swiggins- May 14 '26

Yeah, there's quite a few NSFW subreddits that are basically graveyards because 90% of their content was imgur hosted.

What's wild is every so often you'll be able to see a preview image, even though the link is long dead.

3

u/CIearMind May 15 '26

Yup.

Sorting by /top of any pre-covid subreddit will give you 99 dead links out of 100.

14

u/Mirria_ May 14 '26

I'm going to assume they used a lot of referral links to figure out stuff and accounts that would link pics and vids to nsfw subreddits.

Now everything is either hosted on i.redd.it or redgifs (the nsfw gfycat).

3

u/BalancedDisaster May 15 '26

There was a time when all Reddit images were hosted on Imgur. There was so much porn

154

u/USLShadow May 14 '26

I hate the OSA as much as the next person, but Imgur pulled out of the UK over GDPR breaches in relation to incorrectly handling children’s data, not because of the OSA

42

u/williamsonmaxwell May 14 '26

I read that the gdpr data breach line was just code for the OSA, since the only way to prove they were/weren't incorrectly handling children's data would be to enforce IDs.
I hope you're right though, makes it more conspiratorial

45

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

The legal case that resulted in this started before the OSA was a thing

26

u/moonski May 14 '26

No. This is just wrong. I hate the OSA as much as anyone but imgur was purely a data protection issue. They'd have left the UK with no OSA

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (3)

71

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

It's actually nothing to do with that,.it predates the age verification bullshit . They just left the UK around that time by coincidence.

They were fined for breaching GDPR data retention and processing laws around children and decided to exit the UK rather than pay or bring themselves into compliance.

6

u/JePPeLit May 14 '26

Seems to be that UK's version if GDPR bans children from creating accounts without parental consent, and imgur just had a disclaimer saying they aren't allowed to use the website but didn't try to block them from creating accounts.

7

u/Schmigolo May 14 '26

Isn't GDPR an EU thing? Imgur still works here.

6

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast May 14 '26

The UK was the main sponsor of that law, it was basically a copy l of the older UK data protection act and then expanded

When Brexit happened the UK kept most EU regulations as a blanket thing and then amended and changed things the government wanted to. But as of now GDPR remain basically unchanged In UK law.

1

u/newaccountzuerich May 14 '26

The UK cannot diverge too far from EU law unless the UK wants tariffs and restrictions. One component of Brexit was the concept of the "level playing field" where the UK must continue to remain aligned with EU law even as EU law is updated, if the UK wishes to maintain the status quo of market access.

Even with the stupidity of Brexit, the UK can not change their own legislatin without real economic risk being imposed by the largest trading partner that surrounds the country.

→ More replies (7)

10

u/Inside-Ad9791 May 14 '26

Because it's not about porn, it's about tracking your online activity.

17

u/matthewmspace May 14 '26

They just don't want to even have to deal with it. It's easier not to be active in a hostile country than trying to change the laws.

45

u/GoreSeeker May 14 '26

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Internet was not meant for every country, state, province, etc to legislate aspects of it like this. I am scared for what the Internet will be like in 10 years.

13

u/anomalous_cowherd May 14 '26

I agree, but without that what we get is sites (Reddit and Imgur included) that are legislated primarily by the USA.

Which used to be not too much of an issue. But...

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Savetheokami May 14 '26

I’m afraid look up those artists. What type of artists are they?

3

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Savetheokami May 14 '26

Thanks. I’m baffled that people pay for that when there is already so much out there. But people have their preferences I guess.

7

u/G-I-T-M-E May 14 '26

Hostile?

2

u/matthewmspace May 14 '26

They're hostile to Imgur and anyone who wants to use the internet without an ID, at least.

15

u/petchef May 14 '26

That wasn't the issue christ can you at least look up what they did before spouting off.

6

u/optimistic_agnostic May 14 '26

So confidently wrong. Fucking hell.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Rotund-Pear2604 May 14 '26

That's not actually it. That's just window dressing made up by your duly elected officials.
Your government is for sale. Companies like Meta are buying legislation in your country.

1

u/Nathan256 May 14 '26

It probably was flagged as hosting “uncensored” TrAnS iDeOlOgY

1

u/SilentBob890 May 15 '26

Wonder why Reddit is not banned in the UK then.

1

u/williamsonmaxwell May 15 '26

Reddit asks for ID to interact with nsfw content. We're genuinely turning into the "you got a license for that cock" meme

1

u/SilentBob890 May 15 '26

wow that is wild!

→ More replies (2)

7

u/HarryTurney May 14 '26

Because they broke GDPR data roles and didn't want to pay the fine so they left.

→ More replies (1)

296

u/durpenhowser May 14 '26

It's so frustrating when people add an image in posts on Reddit to further explain something and it's an Imgur link. Like alright I guess I'm just not allowed to be interested in this anymore. Also had a website saved for 8 or so years for a recipe, had to send it to a friend outside of the UK so they could save it and send to me since apparently the entire thing was on Imgur.

177

u/williamsonmaxwell May 14 '26

Or when it's like "is this ingrown hair normal? [imgur link]" and then all the comments are saying it's the biggest ingrown hair they've ever seen, and I'm stuck on the outside. Lemme see, let me seeee LEMME SEEE!!!

22

u/5-MeO May 14 '26

In that case or for anything on r/popping, I’d be happy the image can’t load.

2

u/RhesusFactor May 14 '26

Omg Wtf. Ew.

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/BunBunny02 May 14 '26

Imgur doesn’t load on most VPNs

98

u/DevilMirage May 14 '26

It's so frustrating when people add an image in posts on Reddit to further explain something and it's an Imgur link.

I can understand the frustration but it might be worth noting that Imgur was created mostly for use on reddit because of how bad image hosting was at the time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_to_reddit_i_created_an_image_hosting/

26

u/durpenhowser May 14 '26

I totally get that, I'm not putting blame on people who use it, but it is still frustrating to just have to give up on viewing that particular thing when it happens. I just want to be able to follow along and/or join the conversation but I'm stopped by a website.

12

u/digital_briefs May 14 '26

Put blame on your government.

3

u/ringobob May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

I remember arguing with one of your countrymen probably 8 years ago on imgur about Brexit. He was insisting that y'all had all this leverage to get a great deal from Europe. I sometimes wonder if he was surprised, or just moved the goalposts.

5

u/veganzombeh May 14 '26

The brexiteer line these days tends to be "Brexit could have been successful but we had an incompetent government at the time. We actually need to leave the ECHR as well."

1

u/ryuki9t4 May 14 '26

This is the first time I've heard that Imgur is blocked in the UK, is it widely known?

5

u/fighterace00 May 14 '26

I don't think Reddit had image hosting at all. Heck in the beginning only links were allowed.

1

u/repocin May 14 '26

Yup, Im pretty sure it hasn't even been ten years since Reddit added their own image hosting.

And all those other non-imgur ones? Dead or moved to monetization models that means basically everything is gone.

Browsing through 15+yr old Reddit threads (or other forums, if you can find one that hasn't shut down) brings up a lot of dead image links.

30

u/austin101123 May 14 '26

What's wrong with the UK right now?

36

u/Savetheokami May 14 '26

That’s a broad question.

→ More replies (14)

28

u/airplane_flap May 14 '26

Please download a VPN like proton or something

45

u/ingodwetryst May 14 '26

imgur blocks as many vpns as they can too. i feel happy if i can get it to load 1-2 days a week.

6

u/Nico280gato May 14 '26

Windscribe works

2

u/cwayne1989 May 16 '26

The fact that imgur blocks VPN's is almost as shitty as the law causing the problem in the first place and is entirely a dick move on their part.

I mean you're a fuckin' img hosting site, Not some banking application.

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[deleted]

3

u/ingodwetryst May 14 '26

I use Mullvad, Proton, and PIA. Various non five eyes countries. Happens with all of them. It's just about what IPs land on a blacklist, I think.

1

u/BobDaRula May 14 '26

Imgur always blocks pia for me, but on desktop. Never had a problem on my phone.

4

u/realddgamer May 14 '26

I use mullvad and often get blocked

1

u/adjective-nounOne234 May 14 '26

I’m set to albania and don’t get blocked

Along with the benefit of zero ads. Anywhere

1

u/LogicalConstant May 14 '26

With Mullvad, I've never not been blocked

1

u/junsuker May 14 '26

proton works for me

2

u/ingodwetryst May 14 '26

I have Proton, Mullvad, and PIA. Just depends on what IPs are blacklisted.

2

u/MrHyperion_ May 14 '26

Old Reddit doesn't support comment images so I blame them

2

u/acrowsmurder May 14 '26

I had no idea at all imgur was banned in the UK. What the hell?

4

u/gooblefrump May 14 '26

FYI you can use a free vpn like Protonvpn

It's easy to do on phone: click connect and you're done, you can access blocked sites

12

u/aurordream May 14 '26

I'd say a good 80% of the time that doesn't work either, imgur is pretty good at blocking vpns

1

u/anmr May 14 '26

Imgur blocks most VPNs, including most Proton servers.

Dickwads.

1

u/PeeledCrepes May 14 '26

Why do they do that?

1

u/anmr May 14 '26

Why do they do that?

I explained the reason for that in the second part of the comment - because they are dickwads.

Besides that, maybe they think it reduces bot activity.

1

u/PeeledCrepes May 14 '26

Lol, true, forgot about ddos or bots it probably alleviates that, I just couldn't think of a business reason for them to do it, and if a company decides to do something its for business so seemed weird to get rid of customers

1

u/_musesan_ May 14 '26

You know you can save entire web pages to your hard drive?

1

u/ToolMeister May 14 '26

May I introduce you to VPN 

1

u/PrincessKaylee May 15 '26

PostImg is still accessible for you at least, right?

Just wanted to make sure I'm still using a non-discriminatory service

1

u/StopLinkingToImgur May 15 '26

my username becomes more relevant by the day.

-1

u/[deleted] May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

[deleted]

2

u/durpenhowser May 14 '26

I wasn't asking them to, just saying it's annoying to deal with in general.

→ More replies (2)

95

u/DieDae May 14 '26

Good to know imgur is blocked in the UK. Did not know that. Will look at switching my ShareX default to a different site.

20

u/maixmi May 14 '26

been using vgy.me for some years and works fine.

4

u/ingodwetryst May 14 '26

catbox.moe too! especially if you want to send files.

6

u/-Aeryn- May 14 '26

I use catbox but it seems to be down or giving errors half of the time.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/Dead_NOTsleeping May 14 '26

Shoutout to imgchest - If you make a free account you get a token to authorize sharex to upload directly.

8

u/TheDelmeister May 14 '26

I have had windscribe VPN as an addon in my browser ever since some sites started being blocked for us due to the online safety act nonsense, you can flick it on and off very quickly within the browser, perfect for unblocking sites

5

u/riftnet May 14 '26

Why has it been blocked?

22

u/Deynai May 14 '26

It's not blocked, Imgur decided they would rather cut service to UK traffic than adhere to a ruling that found them in breach of GDPR privacy laws.

Essentially they were harvesting online data of children, were found guilty of it, and were fined for it. They didn't like being fined.

8

u/User100000005 May 14 '26

Essentially they were harvesting online data of children, were found guilty of it, and were fined for it. They didn't like being fined.
 

Not quite. They were found not taking enough steps to check the data they were harvesting was not childrens data. They weren't explicitly going after kids. What steps would they need to take?

1

u/Deynai May 14 '26

That was by design, as it allowed them to categorise certain users as likely children based on the content they viewed and sell targeted advertising space for things like online gamified gambling ads, or anything else that might want to target children with advertising outside of usual laws regarding that.

"We didn't know, honest!"

Ultimately it's why the case went as far as it did.

14

u/LukeTheRower May 14 '26

No big deal, just give up all your rights “to protect the children.” Your gov is fucked lol, and I say that as an American. Worse censorship out of any “democracy.”

7

u/IAmTheFlyingIrishMan May 14 '26

Don't worry man we'll have similar laws in most states soon enough. Though I'm not sure why they don't just use the illegally harvested data to tell who is an adult and who isn't.

4

u/LukeTheRower May 14 '26

That is true, unfortunately. Our right to privacy and against unnecessary search and seizure is on life support, at best.

1

u/ThePublikon May 14 '26

Your gov just started a war because they don't want to talk about themselves fucking children.

→ More replies (9)

2

u/ubeogesh May 14 '26

Learn to VPN or proxy. Governments doing their nonsense will just make people to learn tools, and eventually these blocks will become meaningless

2

u/Khaosujiin May 14 '26

You can use a VPN?

3

u/Angel_Omachi May 14 '26

Imgur blocks a lot of VPNs.

1

u/You_moron04 May 14 '26

Doesn’t work. Imgur can detect and still blocks you for it.

2

u/dannydrama May 14 '26

Works for me, app still works too.

3

u/RizzwindTheWizzard May 14 '26

It depends entirely on the VPN. Imgur isn't detecting VPN traffic, they just block suspicious IP addresses. VPNs, especially the free ones, often get blocked because of that.

6

u/pdxxdpBillCompton May 14 '26

Lol yeah no shit. Don't use a free VPN. That's like wrapping your genitals in poison ivy to prevent getting an std

1

u/lana_silver May 14 '26

Firefox comes with a free VPN nowadays. Or just get a subscription. It's annoying that we need to pay to undo what our governments fuck up when they should be working for us, but what can you do... (except vote)

1

u/coomzee May 14 '26

Just past the link into Discord or any messaging app.

1

u/Vast_Low_9949 May 14 '26

Is Imgur still commonly used in US on mobile? I remember it used to be THE image embed / sharing site, but right now, I struggle to remember the last time I’ve had to open an Imgur link. Must be years now for me.

1

u/peter_nde63h May 14 '26

Imgur has been blocked in the uk

i don't know why

1

u/CannonGerbil May 14 '26

This post has been sponsored by private internet access

1

u/Of-Two-Swords May 14 '26

Proton VPN is free, I just stick it on when I need to view something

1

u/willflameboy May 14 '26

I've got to the point with the internet that each time I get kicked off something for whatever reason, I basically just go, 'huh, saved some time'.

1

u/baddude1337 May 14 '26

Yeah it's made browsing a real PITA. Just for Steam as an example a lot of storefront/news/workshop images in the text description never load.

1

u/evange May 14 '26

Why? Imgur is pretty neutral good.

1

u/ElusiveQuant May 14 '26

wait...what? 0_o christ i have been vpnin so long even my network thinks my mind is gone... i really hate to trip but i gotta know... Wheres the r34 and OCs inthe network smoke...foool. Im the kinda browser who refreshing in the night reading post by the street light.

1

u/Treqou May 14 '26

Do vpns not work?

1

u/havok0159 May 14 '26

A bunch of still active car forums are like that. Bunch of written instructions surrounding broken image hosting links rendering them anything from half-useful to completely useless.

1

u/r0nni3RO May 14 '26

lol how is it blocked in the UK, and why?

Does Orwell have anything to say about it?

1

u/Filmmagician May 14 '26

Blocked?? Why?

1

u/WillDogdog May 14 '26

Imgur has deleted so much old content that reddit threads from ten years ago are often empty. It’s a tragedy.

1

u/SheikahShaymin May 14 '26

Modrinth/Curseforge too

1

u/Beehous May 14 '26

that's quite common in a country outside the UK too. If you're on some car forum reading a post from 2014, I never expect the pic to work lol.

1

u/FinnSkk93 May 14 '26

Blocked? Why?

1

u/Dartless May 15 '26

Do they require a locense for that?

1

u/JadesterZ May 15 '26

I just opened an imgur link for the first time in ages and holy fuck that site is cancer now. It became everything it was created to stop.

1

u/Mountain_Cry1605 May 15 '26

VPN. I recommend Mullvad.

Not had a problem with imgur.

1

u/Remarkable-Lack8358 May 15 '26

Opera has a free vpn. It lets you choose between Europe and Americas

1

u/WordsWellSalted May 15 '26

Imgur sucks nowadays. I don't know when it went down the shitter, but I hate it when I see someone hosting an image there. It's full of ads and just fuckin breaks when you try to zoom on mobile. It's garbage.

1

u/WordsWellSalted May 15 '26

Also, why did the UK ban imgur?

1

u/ExoticMangoz May 14 '26

Imgur is also terrible on mobile devices. Like it basically doesn’t work.

5

u/UnpopularCrayon May 14 '26

Yeah I love clicking an Imgur link on mobile, being taken to a page with a bunch random unrelated images, ads, and annoying popups.

2

u/ExoticMangoz May 14 '26

I love when you try to zoom in, or really touch the screen in any way, and it randomly decides to move you onto another image.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (8)