Quote:
Originally Posted by ObezyankaNol
I don't get the obsession with re-hosting pix, either. What's the big deal?
AFAIK, two main reasons:
1. If you hot-link an image, the site that hosts the image has to support the bandwidth. 2p2 is a big forum and the site where you found the image might not be able to support that bandwidth (everytime someone views the thread, that image is downloaded). In that case, the image will no longer show up. By re-hosting, you're shifting the load over to a website that can support much more bandwidth.
2. If you don't re-host, the original site can change that image at anytime. So "www.whatever.com/image1.jpg" might be the image you want at the time you hot-link, but the site then might change it to something else, like horse-porn, and now you're banned for linking horse-porn. By re-hosting, you ensure that the image won't change.
There's also other minor reasons to do it. For example, if you hotlink a Facebook picture, the privacy settings might be such that others won't be able to see it. Or some people (like me) use an extension that prevents FB from tracking the pages I go to, and that prevents FB pictures from showing up anywhere but Facebook.