32

Imgur is blocked by two of the private ISPs we use. Is there a workaround without involving tunnelling?

Bear in mind that Filmot (an Imgur mirror) and Flickr are also blocked.

Improve this question
  • 14
    The best thing might be if you managed to convince your ISP to unblock it if not for all but for you. – N.N. Oct 21 '11 at 17:15
  • 6
    I can't imagine why they would block it anyway – Simon Sheehan Oct 21 '11 at 19:56
  • 1
    @SimonSheehan: Any internet filter that wanted to block Reddit would probably want to block Imgur as well. It accounts for an enormous portion of Reddit's content (particularly the type that is likely to be blocked) and Imgur indexes its content by subreddit rankings: imgur.com/r/pics – Jeremy Oct 21 '11 at 20:23
  • This goes beyond ISPs: in Turkey and Iran, Imgur based URLs are blocked by the government order (among others). – Bruno Feb 24 '19 at 11:59
31

Stack Overflow's hosting is managed by Imgur, but it's no longer integrated into the Imgur website in any way. There's no reason to be under imgur.com, a domain that's likely to be blocked by many internet filters because of the amount of porn it hosts.

Switching to something like http://i.sstatic.net/ should fix this problem. (Imgur uses EdgeCast so IP-based blocks are unlikely.) It would also make their URLs host-agnostic, preventing the need for any more mass-replacements of URLs after this one.

...but for all we know this might violate Stack Exchange's deal with Imgur and be impossible for now.

Improve this answer
  • This would prevent a future Images stackexchange site from popping up, though. :) – Kevin Vermeer Oct 21 '11 at 17:51
  • 1
    Also, http://images.stackexchange.com/ is long. http://i.stack.imgur.com is pretty long, but it's 2/3 the length of your proposal. I suggest http://i.s.tk/ (to be consistent with Imgur's i.imgur) or http://images.s.tk to be verbose. – Kevin Vermeer Oct 21 '11 at 17:52
  • 1
    I like http://i.s.tk/, I've updated my post with it. – Jeremy Oct 21 '11 at 17:55
  • 2
    @Kevin Why in the world does it matter if the image URL is "long"? – Michael Mrozek Oct 21 '11 at 18:49
  • 2
    @MichaelMrozek - So that we can fit it in comments, tweets, etc, so that it's quick to type, so that you can fit ![alt text](link) on one line, so that an inlined link doesn't make it hard to read a paragraph, because I don't want to waste RAM by loading something from a longer domain name, and I want to make my network requests faster. (The last two were a joke, the others weren't). – Kevin Vermeer Oct 21 '11 at 18:55
  • 3
    @Kevin I'm pretty sure every one of those reasons is ridiculous, but I get the opinion the "short URLs are ridiculous" argument is already lost – Michael Mrozek Oct 21 '11 at 19:02
  • 1
    Since the images are now hosted under the URL http://i.stack.imgur.com, rather than http://i.imgur.com, I was able to persuade our IT people to unblock that particular URL. If your IT folks have a problem with it, just tell them that it's part of Stack Exchange and that Stack Overflow, etc. are hobbled without the images coming through. That should weigh the argument in your favour. – RobH Oct 25 '13 at 16:38
  • @RobH You are forgetting about bureaucracy/regulation keeping such a request stuck in processing for months. – nanofarad May 22 '14 at 20:53
  • 1
    @RobH And anyway, I asked my IT Security folks to whitelist i.stack.imgur.com but they refused because "It’s a sharing site and (my company name) proprietary information can be uploaded there – therefore its blocked on those grounds. " – pabrams Jan 7 '16 at 20:07
  • 4
    @pabrams With a mentality like that, I'm surprised they're not blocking the Stack Exchange sites on the same grounds... – RobH Jan 8 '16 at 17:32
  • @RobH Why stop there? Why not block the entire internet? – pabrams Jan 8 '16 at 17:59
  • 2
    As it happens, Reddit, the original heavy user of Imgur, has now switched to self-hosting under their short domain, at i.redd.it. – Jeremy May 26 '16 at 5:20
6

My company's IT admin blocks i.stack.imgur.com, when visiting stackoverflow, the user-uploaded image shows a broken block.

A workaround for me is copying the image url, paste to a new browser tab, add Https in front of it. for example:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/jbBM4.png

It's annoying, but faster than opening it on my cell phone browser, when I really want to see the image.

Improve this answer
  • Should be easy enough to write userscript doing it automatically. :) – Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating Feb 6 '15 at 20:26
  • if you use SO for work related stuff, this block can be challenged - you only need to find an example of work-related post that gets harder to read because of blocked image. Save the URLs of that post and image and try image URL in browser, so that it brings up block page. In my experience, this page typically has instructions on how to request unblock... – gnat Feb 6 '15 at 20:31
  • ...Do request per instructions, preferably clarifying that it's for "s.imgur" only, not for "general" imgur (I've read somewhere here that s.imgur is typically blocked by accident when block really targets general imgur). Justify that block makes it harder for you to do your job. In (not very likely) case that request doesn't pass, consider asking for advice from your manager, with the same justification – gnat Feb 6 '15 at 20:32
  • @Shadow something like $('img[src^="i.stack.imgur.com"]').attr('src', function() {return $(this).attr('src').replace("http","https")}) – Rm558 Feb 6 '15 at 23:31
  • Yup, that might work! :) – Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating Feb 6 '15 at 23:52
  • @Rm558 Don't forget code formatting: $('img[src^="i.stack.imgur.com"]').attr('src';, function() {return $(this).attr('src').replace("http","https")}). I'm making an userscript for this right now. – haykam Aug 20 '16 at 1:25
  • How can I create this script and run? – LCarvalho Jun 19 '17 at 16:49
  • throughout the network many, probably most by now, imgur links have been changed to https anyway. do users still find this method helpful for regular use? – ocæon May 12 '19 at 12:21
2

As a follow up, and a potential answer, I don't think it would "cost" much to buy a new url, and let's call it stackur or something like that to host the images. IT will still have the imgur backend, just a different url.

Improve this answer
  • Why a new domain? – a cat Nov 23 '11 at 12:48
  • @lunboks imgur is blocked by many IT folks – dassouki Nov 23 '11 at 12:54
  • 1
    Wouldn't they simply block this new URL for whatever reason they might have for blocking imgur already? – Yi Jiang Nov 23 '11 at 12:56
  • 2
    Not really sure about that, I think the issue with imgur is that it's used by lots of media site, has pornographic images on it, – dassouki Nov 23 '11 at 12:59
  • @dassouki I meant why a new domain, as opposed to simply using an existing one. Something like i.s.tk (as Kevin Vermeer proposed) or i.sstatic.net should work just fine. – a cat Nov 23 '11 at 16:55
  • @lunboks I misread his answer. I'll delete mine in a few minutes so you can read this comment first – dassouki Nov 23 '11 at 16:58
  • @dassouki so we just need to find an inexpensive, reliable and accessible image host that will actively monitor the content that is posted there? – Ryan Gates May 16 '13 at 20:00
1

Here's my Tamper monkey script that replaces imgur links with a proxy search engine links. It works fine for me better than using a proxy.

Proxy search engine: DuckDuckGO

Tampermonkey: Download 

// ==UserScript==
// @name           imgur to duckduckgo
// @description    Replaces all imgur links on reddit with duckduckgo links
// @include        https://*.stackexchange.com/*
// @include        https://stackexchange.com/*
// @include        https://stackoverflow.com/*

// ==/UserScript==

changeImages();
changeAnchors();


function changeImages()
{
    var images = document.getElementsByTagName('img');
    for (var i=0;i<images.length;i++) {
        var p = /imgur\.com/;
        var src = images[i].src;
        var res = p.exec(src);

        if (res!=null) {
            images[i].src = 'https://duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=' + src;
        }
    }
}

function changeAnchors()
{
    var a = document.getElementsByTagName('a');
    for (var i=0;i<a.length;i++) {
        var p = /imgur\.com/;
        var href = a[i].href;
        var res = p.exec(href);

        if (res!=null) {
            a[i].href = 'https://duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=' + href;
        }
    }
}
Improve this answer
  • 1
    yeah it still effects people, it was effecting me until I found this solution. Best regards... – brainoverflow98 May 12 '19 at 12:13

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .