Setting Avatars for a Message Board
I decided to create this guide to hopefully cut back on some of the bandwidth leeching I've been experiencing, most notably with people hotlinking directly to pictures hosted on this site from a message board. An example of a hotlink would be something like http://www.animetique.com/naruto.jpg
Why You Shouldn't HotLink
Regardless of what web hosts say, there is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth transfer. Bandwidth transfer takes place every time you view any content on a page. Your browser automatically downloads the site files you are viewing into a cache file on your computer. Depending on how popular a site may be, those 60 KB pages with pics, html, + content add up significantly over time. Most web hosts I've seen, including the one I'm using, give you a monthly limit for bandwidth transfer & if you go over that limit, you end up paying extra.
Maintaining bandwidth transfer within the monthly limit is pretty easy to monitor without outside forces. The problem comes when people hotlink directly to pictures hosted on the site from an outside source - say from your avatar on a message board. Now, not only does the website have all the daily visitors hitting his/her website, but everyone that views a page on the message board that contains that avatar also unknowingly hits the website. With multiple people linking to the site from multiple outside pages, the bandwidth transfer, and hence the probability of reaching that monthly bandwidth limit increases significantly.
Because of this, the original website suffers. It may not be able to keep all its multimedia content (such as pictures, video, wavs, etc) online continually - in the case of my site, I shut the image gallery down once a certain monthly transfer point is reached. The owner may also be charged additional costs or have to pay for additional hosting options such as dedicated server space, which is extremely expensive. From my own experience, it also tends to frustrate the webmaster. I've considered just taking the image gallery offline because I find it rude that people steal not only my pics and content but also the resources of my website.
Using Pictures: Downloading, not Hotlinking
- If you'd like to use a picture from a website, please download it instead of leeching bandwidth. This can be done by right clicking on the picture and using the "Save picture as…" option, or in later versions of Internet Explorer, a menu will pop up with a save icon that you can click. Once you save it to your desktop, you are free to do whatever you want with it.
- Downloading specifically from my site: Click on a thumbnail & you will be taken to a larger version which you can download.
- A number of websites offer free avatar hosting. If you can't host the image yourself and your message board doesn't provide avatar hosting, try a google search for "free image hosting" - here are some suggestions:
- Here are websites that offer free photo and video sharing "free photo sharing":
My Response to Leechers
I take a number of actions to stop leechers from hotlinking to my site. I log all hits to my site, so I'm aware of which message boards or websites are leeching my pictures. I have in the past sent emails to leechers, the message board administrators, & even posted on boards in attempt to ask people to stop stealing my bandwidth. I also move the location of my pictures frequently.
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