Image hosting

From ArticleWorld


Image hosting services allow users to upload images to an Internet site and store or distribute them. Image hosting services have become extremely popular in the last years, as many users do not have their own web space. With today's explosive growth of forums userbase, the need for space to store images has also increased, allowing companies to provide dedicated image hosting services.

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Features

Most image hosting sites provide a web interface through which the content can be uploaded. Most image hosts support some extra features, like:

  • Uploading several files at once, either by selecting more, or by uploading an archived file of several images.
  • Uploading files from an external server
  • Basic retouch tools to resize the image and/or enhance its color set for better web viewing
  • Quick support for common uses: most image hosting websites will provide and extra page showing users how to link their image directly, through a thumbnail or not, in HTML or BBcode.

Paid image hosting websites also offer several other (more advanced) features,, like generating galleries or albums. Some even offer browser toolbars for easy access to functions.

Most image hosting websites also feature a file size limit support. This is because the bandwidth costs are very high in general, and companies must continuously invest in their connection infrastructure.

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Paid and free

Many image hosting websites are free to use, or at least offer some free service. They are generally supported by placing advertisements, which is quite convenient for most users.

There are also some websites that include paid image hosting services. Compared to the free ones, these generally offer better size limits. The prices are more affordable than that of dedicated web space, at the cost of the fact that the user can only store images.

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