Yahoo! has been extremely busy with social media announcements of late.  Though it promised to not screw up Tumblr, it would appear that promise didn’t extend to Flickr.  Or maybe, because they messed with Flickr so much, what Marissa Mayer actually meant to say is that Yahoo’s ‘team’ is too tired to do anything that might damage Tumblr.

So why are people complaining about Flickr so much?

Because it sucks.

There’s the design for one thing.  Though it looks good, setting out to help people with all their spotlight hogging needs, the list of gripes is virtually endless. It seems the vast majority of users absolutely do not like the infinite scrolling, nor the slow loading (seriously, who likes that?), the titles that appear only when you mouse-over them, the fact that items are not easy to find, or that other photo-hogs can easily take over your front page, plus a whole load of other design issues.

Flickr might be pretty but it’s become a serious pain in the ass. But that’s not even the half of it. By far and away the biggest pisser for Flickr-ites is the new pricing model that Yahoo’s touting.  Before, Flickr had two options – namely, a free version laced with ads, or the Pro version that removes the ads and offers unlimited uploads for $24.95 per year.

Now though, the ‘new’ Flickr offers 1TB of storage for both free and paid users, with the only difference being that the ads disappear on paid accounts.  However paid version now comes with a hefty $49.99 price tag for a year’s subscription (just for no ads) and if you want to double the amount of storage space to 2TB, you’ll have to pay a whopping $499.99 a year,  which may or may not come with ads (this remains unclear).  Insane right?

For mobile users at least, Flickr has finally upgraded its Android app, so I guess that’s one good thing to come out of this ‘update’, considering it’s taken months.  The iOS update was released last December so taking five months to do the same for the Android app isn’t exactly brilliant, but it’s something.

It’s pretty clear that Flickr users are pissed at Yahoo right now, and many of them will be looking for better alternatives.  Since we here at SiliconANGLE are Good Samaritans, we’ve searched the interwebs to come up with a number of alternatives in case you want to abandon Flickr, and don’t worry, we don’t judge, we understand your conundrum.

3 Alternatives to Flickr

Picasa

This photo service from Google now offers Google+ integration so all the photos uploaded on Picasa can be easily shared on your Google+ account.  It’s easy to share photos to everyone, even without a G+ account so don’t think that some of your friends will be left out of your photo updates.  It also offers photo editing, such as the ability to add some filters or borders and it even allows users to do side-by-side editing so you’ll know which effects look better or if the original photo looks better than the edited one.  All you need to do is download Picasa here to start editing, uploading and sharing with ease.

Photobucket

You can sign up for your free account either by using your Facebook or Twitter account or by creating a Photobucket account which means another password and username for you to remember.  Photobucket allows you to upload photos and videos, edit them, make them available to all your devices via the cloud and through mobile apps, collaborate with friends and families in creating the ultimate album, and be in control of what you share and who you share content with.  The free version only offers 2GB of free storage with ads, if you want more, 20GB ad free will cost you $2.99 per month and can be used by two people, while the 50GB ad free version is optimized for more users and comes with a $49.99 price tag every month.

mobypicture

You can sign up using your Facebook, Twitter or App.net account or make your very own mobypicture account.  It supports sharing on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Hyves, WordPress, Livejournal, Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo.  You can also use your Android, iOS, BlackBerry, or Nokia mobile device to upload photos or videos on the service or just use the web.  And it’s free and simple to use, so absolutely no hassles on that score.

And don’t forget, you can always just use sites like Facebook, Instagram, and even Twitter, which provide you with all your basic photo sharing and editing needs absolutely free of charge.  Whatever floats your boat!