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Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

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Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#181

Post by Dalewyn »

fmj wrote: post #178
Dalewyn wrote: post #84

>Unlike Imgur, Horizon has absolutely no ads, doesn't sell your data, has built-in security and privacy controls, and is fully focused on your file sharing needs. No social media or other bloat. Why and how is your service's financial future secured? I took a quick glance, and your free tier is perfectly adequate for most people. >Horizon allows you to quickly upload and store all types of files, from images and vide…

>I could not upload anything to imgur from my phone or tablet What devices are you using? I upload to imgur from my phone all the time. Just do it from a browser in desktop mode, you don't even have to login.

Presumably like any normal person: I installed their application, logged in (I have an account), and was then stonewalled by the lack of any upload apparatus within the general vicinity.

Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#182

Post by jmuguy »

sweca wrote: post #46
jmuguy wrote: post #44

Maybe stupid question but can video files uploaded be played in the browser? I’m always frustrated when I want to share a game clip with friends and it seems like the options are YouTube which is overkill and a few services like streamable that are too expensive for just casual sharing

Yes! Supported file types can, such as MP4. Other video formats are not currently supported for streaming (can still be uploaded for download) due to browser restrictions and compute considerations. For supported video types, Horizon is optimized in the sense that it recognizes videos and allows viewers to stream it in chunks for seamless watching.

That's awesome. I think I read somewhere that everything is hosted in EU? Because man... its painfully slow uploading a 600 MB video from east coast US, and I have a GB line.

Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#183

Post by sweca »

jmuguy wrote: post #182
sweca wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Supported file types can, such as MP4. Other video formats are not currently supported for streaming (can still be uploaded for download) due to browser restrictions and compute considerations. For supported video types, Horizon is optimized in the sense that it recognizes videos and allows viewers to stream it in chunks for seamless watching.

That's awesome. I think I read somewhere that everything is hosted in EU? Because man... its painfully slow uploading a 600 MB video from east coast US, and I have a GB line.

Yes it's hosted in the EU. Sorry about your slow upload speeds. I'm in Canada on the east coast and it's still decently fast for me. Although, the uploader can be optimized further (using multiple threads for each file rather than single thread per file), so they may or may not improve after that.

In the (possibly near) future, I do plan on scaling to the NA to give us better latency.

Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#185

Post by sweca »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #184

Imgur ads? No ads..they wouldn't even take our money for an account to support for years. And all the direct link images posted to forums and stuff still work after years. Working out pretty good for this end-user.

Hm. There are quite a few ad scripts on Imgur[0], and they have an advertising policy[1]. There are also reports on Reddit that the Imgur app has ads[2].

[0]: https://themarkup.org/blacklight?location=us&device=mobile&f...

[1]: https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/26479484299163-Imgu...

[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/y1vh55/ads_recently...

Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#186

Post by shrubble »

fragmede wrote: post #28
sweca wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! It's been operating for the past 3 years without any ads or third-party trackers, and I don't have plans to shut it down for the forseeable future.

No one ever starts these things with plans to shut them down, the question is how much money do you have for this right now, how much money is it burning per unit of time, and how long will that last if no one pays for a paid plan. I'm not asking you to answer those questions, but pointing out the reality of the economics of the situation. If an image goes viral, can you pay a 10x or 100x hosting bill? For how long?…

I can, right now, go find dedicated servers with 1gbps port that will deliver continuous 800Mbps of traffic 24x7, for $35/month. Bandwidth is not as expensive as people think.

Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#187

Post by scharman »

shrubble wrote: post #186
fragmede wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one ever starts these things with plans to shut them down, the question is how much money do you have for this right now, how much money is it burning per unit of time, and how long will that last if no one pays for a paid plan. I'm not asking you to answer those questions, but pointing out the reality of the economics of the situation. If an image goes viral, can you pay a 10x or 100x hosting bill? For how long?…

I can, right now, go find dedicated servers with 1gbps port that will deliver continuous 800Mbps of traffic 24x7, for $35/month. Bandwidth is not as expensive as people think.

You’ve intrigued me! Can you provide a link to such a hosting option? I’ve got some side projects I’d like to explore! Thanks in advance

Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#188

Post by scharman »

MzHN wrote: post #96

Monetization and abuse has been mentioned a bunch as things to consider as you gain more users, but I'll add a couple more I think are relevant, at least once the service is big enough. Your payment processor. Payment processors might get triggered by the fact that adult content is pretty much explicitly allowed. They might also just generally deem you "high risk" and kick you out. I think this is one of the biggest…

This is a great response. The shady operators can ruin simple services like these :( I’m now curious how you’d ever practically deal with this. How does iCloud deal with encrypted illegal content? Surely they can’t penalize Apple in these situations?

Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#189

Post by scharman »

sweca wrote: post #16
devnull212 wrote: post #14

Congrats on the launch! But, something that stops me from using a number of services is the sale of fixed size plans where I'll typically either under utilize them (e.g. do I have 100 GB of screenshots to upload) or I'll over utilize and might not have an upgrade path immediately available for more storage. I tend to toss my photos in backblaze or S3 for this reason -- UX is severely lacking but I pay for what I use.…

I understand where you're coming from. Most people do not have 100 GB of media on hand, nor will they probably in the next 5 years. As a result, it's basically unlimited from a reasonable usage standpoint. Before adding a 100 GB cap, I actually experimented with having "unlimited storage", but this can go wrong in many ways. I've spoken to companies in the VPN and cloud storage industries and having unlimited anythin…

Looks like a great service - kudos! Hope it succeeds and competes with imgur!

Re: Show HN: Horizon – Private alternative to Imgur

#190

Post by sweca »

scharman wrote: post #188
MzHN wrote: post #96

Monetization and abuse has been mentioned a bunch as things to consider as you gain more users, but I'll add a couple more I think are relevant, at least once the service is big enough. Your payment processor. Payment processors might get triggered by the fact that adult content is pretty much explicitly allowed. They might also just generally deem you "high risk" and kick you out. I think this is one of the biggest…

This is a great response. The shady operators can ruin simple services like these :( I’m now curious how you’d ever practically deal with this. How does iCloud deal with encrypted illegal content? Surely they can’t penalize Apple in these situations?

Apple's iCloud attempted to do CSAM scanning, but ultimately they backed off due to large public backlash. In the United States, there are lawmakers trying to require it, but there is still a lot of advocacy from privacy right activists, such as the EFF.
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