I made a website to keep your images alive (whatever)

submitted ago by picman

Firstly, I want to thank all the individuals who helped me out here.

I created a website: picinfinity.co. The purpose of the site is to keep your images alive and on the interwebs forever.

Oh great, another image host

Not exactly. Picinfinity doesn't actually host any of the images you upload. Instead it ensures that your images are always hosted on any one of a number of image hosts around the internets. If a host goes down (which happens all the time) your image will be safe. Once you upload an image you will get a "Direct Link" which, when accessed, will redirect to a working link on an actual image host. This way, my site does all the work to ensure that your image stays alive, and all you have to do is use the direct link.

Here's an example using the direct link: http://picinfinity.co/d/3967fb7c-1de9-428d-a708-56d1a84e5da8.jpg

At the moment, all direct links end with .jpg (because I'm being lazy), but if you uploaded a .gif for example you'll still be redirected to a link ending in .gif. Example: here's a gif: http://picinfinity.co/d/326219b5-69f2-485e-9525-01f476aa8e7a.jpg

You'll notice the site isn't pretty, but who cares? There's no styling for the direct image links, which is the main purpose of image hosts in the first place.

Why no styling? Because I'm not a web developer. I had a nifty idea so I threw this site together. If you'd like to edit the css and give me a better version I would be more than happy to implement it in the site (while we're on the subject, if you wrote up a stylesheet that scales nicely for mobile devices that would be sweet).

TL;DR: Picinfinity uploads your image to any one of a number of free image hosts and ensures that the image never dies (by keeping redundant backups on other image hosts). You get a dedicated link which will redirected you directly to a working image host every time.

OhBlindOne ago

Nice. I'll probably use this in the future.

Zinnsee ago

And what happens if your site is down? Wouldn't the whole redundancy thing be useless then?

picman ago

Answered a similar question here

Let me know if you have any other questions :)

prairie ago

Voat's comment-linking seems broken, because your link just takes me to the top of this discussion. Here's the answer your link was supposed to scroll to:

Always a risk. Few things to consider:

  1. I don't have a "trial" on my web hosting service because it's running on a dedicated server I've owned for awhile now.
  2. The site doesn't take much to run. I built it to offload most of the big bandwidth work on the other hosts. The most bandwidth intensive action the site takes is the initial upload. After that, the rest is handled by the image hosts.
  3. No files are actually stored on my site. I know this doesn't mitigate all "legal" implications, but it helps.

Not to say I'm invincible, but I've put a great deal of time into planning this site to ensure it's scale-ability without costing me much.

Also, if anything goes bad I can always dump the database online so everyone can get the links to their images. As long as they have the direct link provided by picinfinity, they could query the database to find the links to all the hosts their image is hosted on.

But, alas, as with anything, there are no guarantees.

picman ago

Thanks for this

Mikel09 ago

Nice, it got a place on my "tools" bookmarks

picman ago

Hope I don't disappoint :)

CanIHazPhD ago

You are my new favorite person!

picman ago

I'm honored :)

tippyc ago

This will work great for a year until your trial runs out on your web hosting service, or until you mysteriously disappear after hosting right-wing material. We've had users and even the creator of Voat try this in the past and it's always the same result: thousands of submissions worth of content gets lost.

picman ago

Always a risk. Few things to consider:

  1. I don't have a "trial" on my web hosting service because it's running on a dedicated server I've owned for awhile now.

  2. The site doesn't take much to run. I built it to offload most of the big bandwidth work on the other hosts. The most bandwidth intensive action the site takes is the initial upload. After that, the rest is handled by the image hosts.

  3. No files are actually stored on my site. I know this doesn't mitigate all "legal" implications, but it helps.

Not to say I'm invincible, but I've put a great deal of time into planning this site to ensure it's scale-ability without costing me much.

Also, if anything goes bad I can always dump the database online so everyone can get the links to their images. As long as they have the direct link provided by picinfinity, they could query the database to find the links to all the hosts their image is hosted on.

But, alas, as with anything, there are no guarantees.

prairie ago

At least it's easier for someone to pick up the torch of a redirection site rather than a full host site, and that does make it less-susceptible to takedown or becoming too costly to afford the bandwidth of.

tippyc ago

Interesting, seems like a cool idea. Do the picinfinity links still work if the main host is lost? Or is the idea just upload it everywhere and have your server go down the list until it finds a good redirect?

picman ago

Sort of. If a link goes down or a link otherwise dies, it will be deleted from the database and reuploaded to a working host.

So, it does go down the list of links, but the list never gets very long. That what you mean?

tippyc ago

Yes, exactly what I mean.

Shilly_Mc_Shillface ago

Wonderful idea, protect yourself from those that would like to see you fail; those that rewrite History. They will use the usual CP vector. I realize you are not hosting, neither was pirate bay.

picman ago

They will use the usual CP vector

This is one of the reasons I'm never going to implement any sort of "explore" feature on the site.

For what it's worth, I've set the site to not be indexed on search engines like jewgle. Probably won't matter if I piss (((someone))) off enough.

Like I mentioned to someone else, I'm probably going to setup some contingency where the entire database will get dumped online in case anything happens. So no one loses access to their images.

flashurnands ago

Distributed hash tables comes to mind but i have no idea how you could make it work right. Cool project though!

picman ago

Interesting. I'll look into that. Thanks!

shutupfaggot ago

Shut up faggot

picman ago

Oh, man I'm so sorr--*looks at user info*

Never mind.

NotHereForPizza ago

Hell of a job

picman ago

Thanks :D

Hypercyberpastelgoth ago

Not bad Spartan.

AinzOown ago

Yours is pretty unique but one thing I like image hosting sites to have is the ability to upload albums / collections / multiple photos at the same time. Bonus points if you can put them into categories / foulders. This might not be what your site is about just thought I would mention it. It's nice to be able to upload all my pepe memes at once and have them in one place.

picman ago

Hmmmmmm.......

Don't expect to see such features implemented any time soon, but I like the idea. I'll see what I can do.

TheTrigger ago

Very nice; this is a good concept. Would you be open to the idea of using Bootstrap and some light JS? If so, I could write you a mobile-ready, responsive interface by tomorrow morning. I just got a certification in front-end web development, and have been looking for something to practice on.

picman ago

Pm'ed

KikeFree ago

certification in front-end web development

protip: never mention that.

TheTrigger ago

Why? Everyone and their grandmother is doing that, these days. Hardly doxxing myself, by saying so.

telleveryoneyouknow ago

Because it sounds noobish - like a police officer pointing out he graduated from the police academy.

TheTrigger ago

Well, I'm not gonna lie about my credentials; I'm not some poo-in-the-loo trying to rip him off. Just being upfront. I have been doing web design since high school (I'm over 30, now), if that makes a difference. I've only recently looked in to actually getting that magical piece of paper that says I know how to do stuff.

voltagegate ago

Ignore he's just bitter. But the proof is in the pudding, if you're good at front end design prove it, be ready to show something in your portfolio.

picman ago

I think your analogy would make more sense if he said

I have a computer

Because to be on the site, you have to have a computer, but not necessarily be a web developer.

White-Supremacist ago

using Bootstrap and some light JS?

Why?

TheTrigger ago

Bootstrap would get rid of almost all the work in making a responsive site. You just tag the right classes in the HTML markup, and it'll automatically resize everything, depending on the view-port of the device you're using. It's also a super small file, that can be uploaded to the server, so as to not have it load through some shady CDN. For example, voat uses Bootstrap for this exact purpose.

The JS would be stuff that I'd put in there to make everything work on the same page, instead of having to refresh to a different part of the site, between clicks (voat does the same thing for upvoating and commenting; which is why you can't do that without enabling JS in NoScript).

White-Supremacist ago

But does JS and boostrapping not make a website and browser far more vulnerable to certain MITM or hijacking efforts? Might it be like saying to make it faster and easier to get into you made the locks much easier to open, but then made that car easier to steal?

swastikawaii ago

Proper designs are responsive by default. Bootstrap isn't necessary.

voltagegate ago

That's bullshit. Proper design lies on top proper frameworks. HTML is responsive out of the box.

picman ago

Proper designs

This description doesn't fit my site, so I'm happy to take the help haha

fusir ago

I've messed around with hosting content before. All I can say is you need a multi-server system to take advantage of cheap storage instead of putting it all on one server.

https://vpsrus.com has some really cheap storage. Keep latest loads stored in a database and transfer ones which are large and haven't been viewed for a long time to the deep-storage. Then when you have a request for something that isn't on the main server you can either proxy it through to the deep storage while storing it again on main or you can 302 redirect directly to the deepstorage's ip.

picman ago

Interesting. I'm not sure I'll need this as the site database only stores basic text (urls and such), while the actual files are stored on other hosts.

But, I will definitely keep this in mind in case I end up needing it in the future.

fusir ago

Wait. You are promissing to keep people's files alive that have been squashed by other hosts, by storing them on other hosts?

picman ago

  1. You upload an image to picinfinity

  2. picinfinity uploads that image to x amount of other image hosts

  3. picinfinity regularly checks to make sure your image is alive on at least x amount of image hosts

  4. If one goes down, picinfinity uploads it to other (living) hosts until it's uploaded to x amount of living image hosts

This way, if a host goes down (see: slimgur, imgtc, etc.), your image will survive because it will still be on other hosts and will continue to be reuploaded to other living hosts if any hosts go down.

LlamaMan ago

Really clever tool.

Mr_NoSkill ago

Once again, the market provides.

picman ago

:B

DillHoleBagHands ago

Now if only we could get a YouTube alternative that doesn't suck cock.

MaxAncap ago

Dtube you faggot

picman ago

Hooktube is a pretty nice alternative for the time being.

HarlandKornfeld14 ago

It just mirrors. If a video is shoahed on YouTube it's shoahed on Hooktube.

fagetty ago

Hooktube is just a YouTube frontend.

Chiefpacman ago

So?

What are you asking for, a place besides youtube to upload videos? Because those exists..

fagetty ago

I'm saying it's not an alternative to YouTube. Surely even you can figure that out.

Chiefpacman ago

I want youtube alternative

use hooktube

You: it’s just a frontend

Me: what is your point

You: its a frontend

I hope this layout helps you understand that your comment was irrelevant

ruck_feddit ago

I'm convinced!

fagetty ago

Why are you acting dumber than a nigger?

voatHatesTheFirst ago

So, the same as faggot OPs site.

odinist ago

Pretty cool, OP.

picman ago

Thanks!