What's gone wrong?
Alright you absolute legends, I just lost a massive post to my Mac deciding to scroll back like a tit mid post. Fuming. But here we are again, straight to the point. This is aimed at UK-based players (or anyone else hit by geo-blocks or imgur bails) who can’t see a single image on the forums. Sigs? Gone. Guides? Blank. News? Blank. Purple rectangles and blue squares are the best you're getting. All because Imgur blocked the UK over some ICO data wank and soon to be the full Online Safety Act (not yet), but close enough to ruin your day and forum experience. I thought it was broken links at first. Then I saw threads from yesterday with the same issue. Nah lads and ladies, its just pure censorship and the beauitiful decline of the UK. Imgur bailed to avoid fines over GDPR. Classic.
I don't think anyone outside of the UK and potentially Ireland is aware of this and the impact it has on the forums. I'm also not sure what % of the player base are in the UK, but I hope this makes sense to someone and stops some confusion. I spoke to a few players yesterday, some new players also that are from the UK, so I know that some are having this issue.
Let's take a recent Alora Newspaper, this is how it looks in the UK (minus VPN):
The reason why?
This has had a huge impact on all forums, not just Alora and has happened very recently. I would like to make the global audience aware of this also.
I'm sure most of you know the obvious, use a VPN, I'll move onto changing this globally in a later post, everyone in the UK should be applying WG at router level in the very near future.
So let's jump back to Ireland and open the same thread, because believe it or not, I actually want to read the newspaper and not be in North Korea.
Image Posting Tips for UK Users and those affected by UKOSA and IMGUR
- I would recommend using media, self hosted or imgbb.com, it's still going just fine and is totally free to use (my personal preference if I don't self host)
- Use a VPN, there are free options out there, but you'll be bottle necked, I personally use Proton, but I'd recommend a paid plan somewhere with Proton, Nord, Mullvad etc, or whoever you prefer, it honestly costs a few quid a month and saves a bunch of hassle and protects your identity and footprint somewhat in this evergrowing surveillance state.
- I will add to this
Apologies in advance if this is totally useless to you, just skip it. But it's a real annoyance for UK users, and some people who play RSPS are just casual RuneScape players that don't have a technical background, or use VPNs 24/7.
Shout in advance to @ H F or the demonstration screenshots haha.
