In keeping with last week’s promise to survey a variety of backup services today we’re going to take a timely look at one of the photo centric social media options out there: Flickr. If you need a primer on backups in general start here.
Flickr is an interesting beast. Over the years, it’s gone from parent company to parent company in an endless series of acquisitions. I didn’t plan to go over the Flickr stats until later. Strictly speaking, this isn't’ really a backup service - but it’s been in the news lately as it been acquired by yet another parent company: Smugmug.
This post is timely for those of you with dormant Flickr accounts (guilty). Up until May 25, 2018, (THIS FRIDAY!!) users have the option of deleting their Flickr account before their data are transferred to yet another company. In light of the recent controversies with the proliferation and loss of control over personal data (including photos) and the fact that I don’t really use my Flickr account anymore, I chose to delete my account. If you don’t really use your Flickr account anymore - I’d encourage you to also follow suit.
That being said, the below stats were collected before the acquisition by SmugMug. So far, they don’t plan any changes - but you can bet changes are on the way sooner or later.
Free Storage Option: 1 TB
Paid Storage Option/Annual Cost: 1TB / $50 - $72 per year for additional tools and options
Compression: No. Your photos are saved at the original resolution.
JPG Support: Yes
TIFF Support: No
RAW Support: No
Device Support: Yep. The flickr app and website is wide-spread and supported on many devices and browsers.
Ease of Backup: Manual (Free Service) / Automatic (Paid Service)
Ease of Restoring: Manual
Other Benefits: Photo-centric social network allows photos to be easily shared and be discovered.
Privacy: Some privacy options. Remains to be seen how Smugmug will change the service or maintain it as is.
Licensing: While you keep ownership of your photos, Flickr grants its parent company Yahoo* a "world-wide, royalty free and non-exclusive license(s)" to your photos. (Yipes)
*Again, remains to be seen how this will change under SmugMug.
Next week, we’ll take a closer look at Facebook & Instagram.
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Feature Photograph of the Week - Inglis Falls
The Sydenham River flowing down the Niagara Escarpment at Inglis Falls, Ontario.