Oh boy, this one’s a doozey.
Firstly, are you ok? BECAUSE I’M NOT. If you are based on the UK, and my metrics suggest at least 78% of you are (and if you’re not, congratulations) you may have noticed that all the images on the blog are now just a purple placeholder with “Content not viewable in your region” and this is because Imgur, the image hosting site I used, has Geoblocked the UK therefore cutting off all Imgur-hosted content to the UK.
It’s pretty devastating, I’ve had a big cry over it which I do feel silly about, but it feels like it has rendered my work completely null and void – the screenshots are integral to my writing style, it feels worthless without them. The worst part is Imgur users were given no notice, so I didn’t even have the opportunity to backup it all up. Even if I did, I wouldn’t have even known where to start, I have 777 posts on this blog and I’d hazard a guess each averages 40 to 50 images, if not even closer to 100.
I can still write, and I will be looking for an alternative image hosting website but with the Online Safety Act kettling the online world in, the free and viable options for decent quality embedding are few and far between. I can host images natively to the blog, but it’s a limited capacity and adds a very short lifespan onto the website. Ultimately, the current approach to the online world is not one that encourages small niche-interest blogs and for that reason, in all honesty, I don’t think the blog is continuing in 2026. I intend to write Strictly, and hopefully I can make it a fun send off. This isn’t a final decision, there’s every chance Imgur undoes the Geoblocking, but I’m not overly optimistic and even then, all trust is gone.
Happy reading.
Ariadne
sue
Crowd fund for a payed for site that will support pictures?
S
Second this!
Maybe a yearly fundraiser to cover the missing cost like Wikipedia does? I’m a longtime reader of the blog, would hate for it to shut down! I’d spare a coin or two!
JBS
Crikey! It’s in relation to this: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/09/popular-image-sharing-site-imgur-com-blocks-access-to-uk-visitors.html
What a massive arseache 🙁 Gutted you’ve got to endure this nonsense.
Louise
Oh! I’m sorry, what a crappy situation. I hope the image hosting gods smile upon you and this gets sorted. If not, your writing alone is fun enough for me, so I’ll stick around! X
Roberta
How frustrating and sad! We would all miss you so much. Is Substack an option for you at all?
Heather
Oh, no! That’s appalling. I love your reviews, and I’ll be sad and angry if Imgur continue to make it impossible for you to blog. I hope there’s a good solution around the corner
Ellie
This whole situation is a nightmare. Not sure if it would work for what you do but you could try imgbb? Ik it works on forums but not sure how different that is code wise to blogs.
Oh, and if you have a VPN you can use it to go on the blog from a different country and resave images but that sounds like a real pain with now many there are. Fingers crossed this gets sorted.
Tim
I’m gutted about this. I’ve been watching the latest Sewing Bees and reading your reviews after each episode. I only got up to episode 6. And I visited Imgur’s website every day too. I’m going to have to get a VPN as it won’t just be Imgur going. If Imgur don’t relent, you or someone outside the country could try printing/saving your Imgur-based pages as PDFs, and you could have them as well as the original pages. Failing that, I’m sure it won’t be long before someone clever comes up with a quick way of redoing WordPress/Imgur sites. I’m sure it will work out.
Helen Zaltzman
Your work is so great and it would be devastating if you stopped because of bloody Imgur and tech evilry, rather than because you wanted to stop. I hope some alternative appears, and I’m not the only one who’d want to pay you to help cover some costs
gavinmaughfling
Dear Ariadne, stay strong! You bring us endless joy.
Ali
Echoing others, what you do is so joyful and to me it’s what the internet could and should be! I hope you can find a way to protect that. It does feel like there should be a way for someone who’s a handy coder to write a script to pull images for you to back up (not that I would know about that kind of thing). Happy to chip in on costs for figuring out archiving or improving the site infrastructure to make your life easier! Let us know.
sue
Wrote to Monkseal who reples
“I think people are moving to use PostImage for blogs? I’m sure Ariadne is more across alternatives than I am, it took me long enough to stop using Photobucket!”