content: How to run your own image host So people keep using the same image hosts and gets pissed off when said host goes offline or has some political agenda they don't agree with. So I'm going to recommend you do it yourself which can be done with $20 for server/domain payments (for a year) some free software. Step 1- choose your VPS provider You've probably heard of some of the major providers like Amazon and Digital Ocean though if you want something cheap with a lax TOS I suggest BuyVM (they offer a $15/year low-end server, good enough just for a personal server to share memes or whatever). You can also host it yourself and not have to make any server payments at all. Just forward port 443 or 80 in your router to an old laptop and use that as your server for the rest of this tutorial. Step 2 (optional but recommended) - Get a domain https://www.namecheap.com/ sells some domains (such as .xyz) for $0.88 for the first year (I know for .xyz specifically it's $5/year after that but it may be different for others). Namecheap has a control panel where you just have to add an a record and put your server's ip in. Step 3- Setup your server If you go with BuyVM's server, they have an install menu for a one-click OS installation. I personally use Ubuntu server. Step 4- Choose your software I personally use Open-PFS (a simple multipurpose file server with album support and basic password security) as well as Shimmie 2 (an imageboard software that is used to create booru-style sites). HFS is a multi-purpose file server for Windows users (works through Wine on Linux though if you don't want it to run on a high-numbered port i.e. having to use example.com:8080 or 127.0.0.1:8080 rather than example.com or 127.0.0.1, you may have trouble with HFS on Linux). Some software also has prerequisites. For Open-PFS you must have a Apache and PHP setup (there are plenty of online tutorials on how to do this) and for Shimmie2 you also need a database such as MySQL (which may require some minimal configuration, such as to create the initial table for it). If you want something simple you can just install Apache and upload files using SFTP (which is already installed on Ubuntu, you just have to enable it via "sudo service openssh-server start" and login with your Linux credentials using FileZilla or another client). Step 5 (optional but recommended) - Setup HTTPS using a free cert The easiest way to do this is to install Let's Encrypt assuming you're using one of the solutions that requires Apache (look it up in a search engine for a tutorial). This will both give you a valid certificate and give you and your users some security when entering passwords and such. If there is enough interest in all this, I can make a video tutorial or something