Reddit begins replacing Imgur with its own in-house image hosting service
Reddit's new image uploader could take traffic away from Imgur
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Your support makes all the difference.Reddit is in the first stages of replacing Imgur, its usual image-hosting site, with its own in-house service.
As announced in a post on the site, the image uploader will allow users to upload pictures of up to 20MB and GIFs of up to 100MB directly to the site in a post.
The uploader won't compress the images if they're under the limit, ensuring they don't lose any quality, and they'll stay up indefinitely unless they're deleted by the user or by Reddit for breaking the site's content policy.
The new feature is currently being rolled out to 16 of the site's core 'subreddit' forums this week, and 50 more will follow next week.
Previously, if users wanted to post a picture on the site, they had to head to Imgur to upload the image there, and link to it in their Reddit post. Now, the whole process will become a bit more straightforward.
Imgur was set up by Redditor Alan Schaaf in 2009, and was designed to be an alternative to the slow, ad-laden image hosting sites which dominated at the time.
The site took off, and its universal popularity on Reddit has made it the 45th most-visited site in the world, according to web statistics company Alexa.
Imgur was created as a 'gift' to the Reddit community, and the two sites have had a close informal relationship ever since. Now, that relationship might be coming to an end.
In the post, a Reddit team member said: "For a long time, other image hosting services have been an integral part of how content is shared on Reddit - we're grateful to those teams, but are looking forward to bringing you a more seamless experience with this new feature."
In the subreddits where the image uploader is available, Imgur still seems to dominate most of the picture posts. It's early days, however, and the simplicity of the new service will likely make it grow in popularity as it spreads across the site.
The change could result in a reduction in traffic and advertising revenue for Imgur, but the company didn't seem concerned. In a statement to TechCrunch, Imgur said: "Nothing will change for Reddit users would would like to use Imgur to share their images on Reddit."
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