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Why?
I'll admit that first and foremost I have selfish reasons for this. I often read HN on mobile. I also use Firefox on desktop and mobile, as should you[1]. When I tap on a seemingly direct i.imgur.com/yaddayadda.jpg link, I get the imgur UI loading animation, and it never loads. I have not found a way around this, other than using a Chrome based browser.
But my personal reasons aside, I want you to realize that imgur has become the exact kind of service its creator hated[2], and you probably hate too. One where you can't directly link to the image file, and the polar opposite of "no nonsense" image hosting.
Although the downhill started way before, I'll also note that imgur was bought by MediaLab in 2021[3]. If that doesn't ring any bells, have a listen to the episode 93 of Darknet Diaries[4]. If you don't have time for that, let me quote a comment[5] from the acquisition thread: "the general idea seems to buy declining brands for cheap and extract as much value as possible".
I wish I could give you an alternative as good as the original imgur, but as you probably know, it is very difficult to host a no nonsense image hosting service. For context see the imgur IAmA thread[6].
So instead I have some options that may fit at least the HN use case of occasionally sharing a screenshot or a photo.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/goodbye-edge/
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/i/c07u7kr/
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28674883
[4] https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/93/
[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28677432
[6] https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/y81ju/i/
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What to use instead?
Option 1:
Abuse a popular unrelated service that you already have an account for.
For example Discord, Reddit, Twitter and GitHub all let you upload an image and link directly to it.
In Discord start a personal "Notebook" group and upload your images there.
In Reddit post images to "Your profile".
In Twitter just tweet it, or reply tweet it to yourself if you want it more hidden.
In GitHub drop images in a comment of your own gist for example.
This may not be your favorite option, but it is my favorite option as a reader of your comment or post, because the probability of the link just working and directly opening the image in the future is higher than most other services.
If you feel bad about abusing the service, you could throw some money at them. Discord has Nitro, Reddit has Gold, Twitter has Blue, GitHub has Team.
Option 2:
Take a look at actual imgur alternatives. I looked some up for you, but I can't personally vouch for any of them.
put.re - I was going to recommend put.re, but apparently they're showing exactly why we can't have nice things https://gitlab.com/putre/frontend/-/issues/16 You can request access, but I haven't tried.
upload.vaa.red - Can't tell what the retention time is, otherwise looks good.
imgbb.com - Says direct linking is a paid feature, but seems to work either way, for now.
cubeupload.com - They've had to remove anonymous uploads. See a pattern yet? Otherwise direct links seem to work, sometimes.
You can also take a look at ShareX image uploaders https://github.com/ShareX/ShareX/tree/develop/ShareX.UploadersLib/ImageUploaders or custom uploaders https://github.com/ShareX/CustomUploaders
Option 3:
Host your own.
I am not an expert on this, or any of the previous things for that matter, but one combination I saw recommended was Backblaze + Cloudflare.
There are many many options here, and putting something like Cloudflare or any of its CDN competitors in front of whatever you feel like setting up will work fine and be cheap or even free.
Maybe comment your favorite set up.
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If you have better alternatives, or really any alternatives that work in 2022, please share.