Imgur Pro had previously charged its users with a monthly subscription worth $2.95 or an equivalent of $24 a year. As the site celebrates its sixth year anniversary, it decided to make the service free to all its users. It will now rely instead on ad support.
Now that all its services are free, Imgur users can have access to multiple thumbnail size sharing options, unlimited number of image uploads, image management and editing tools, image analytics and referral data and increased interaction capability in the community wherein members can share, comment and vote.
"Today, we celebrate Imgur's sixth year, and what an amazing six years it has been!," said Alan Schaaf, Founder and CEO of Imgur. "What began as a simple image uploading service has transformed into a community of the Internet's most dynamic visual storytellers. Imgur has become the best place to explore, share, and discuss the Internet's images - and we couldn't have done it without your support and loyalty."
One thing that should be noted with the change is the users' ad experience. Previously, Pro users are entitled to have an ad-free subscription. This time, everyone who visits the site will be seeing ads. There's even no option to pay extra in order to keep them away from one's view.
"One small display ad per page will now be shown," added Schaaf.
Another thing that should be remembered is the file size of hosted images. Before, Pro users can host images of up to 10MB which Imgur would compress down to make them more manageable. Free users are capped at 5MB. This time, everyone who uses the site is capped at 5MB. Animated GIFs are exempted and can reach up to 200MB.
Imgur is an online image hosting site that was founded in 2009. It is touted as "the home to the web's most popular image content, curated in real time by a dedicated community through commenting, voting and sharing." In 2013, Imgur has overtaken other image hosting sites such as TinyPic, ImageShack and Photobucket. In 2014, the site introduced the new feature that allows uploaded animated GIFs to be automatically converted into much smaller files such as MP4 video files and WebM.
Imgur Pro subscribers who have signed up within the past 30 days will be given a refund. Payment will be sent through PayPal or Google Wallet.
