[Important] Catbox Needs Your Help (blog.catbox.moe)
from not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone to technology@lemmy.world on 01 Sep 13:01
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/31163121

tl;dr - Patreon deleted my page, refused to elaborate, and Catbox is now short $1,300~ in reoccurring income to pay the bill. Support Catbox Here

I use catbox to post videos and moving webp files to lemmy 😭

edit: to be clear I’m not affiliated with catbox, i just shared

#technology

threaded - newest

shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip on 01 Sep 13:07 next collapse

You could also set up a page on kuno.anne.media.

It’s a Monero donation platform, so even if they were to remove your page, the donation wallet you set up for it would still be able to receive donations even without them.

SatyrSack@quokk.au on 01 Sep 18:03 collapse

What is the value add of this product? The donors and recipients still need to set up a Monero wallet and everything to use the service. A recipient may just as well instead use any other means (social media, etc.) to announce that they are accepting Monero donations at xyz address.

shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip on 01 Sep 18:21 collapse

Mainly goal setting and tracking. You could say, for example, that your goal is to raise 50 Monero, and each donation to that address will show up on the site as adding to it, and the donor can leave you a message if they wish.

It allows everybody to see exactly how close you are to your 50 Monero goal, etc.

db2@lemmy.world on 01 Sep 13:17 next collapse

Now patreon is enshittifying. They sure don’t mind taking their cut from people whose model is shoving things inside themselves though.

dontbelievethis@sh.itjust.works on 01 Sep 13:32 collapse

Any reliable alternatives you know of?

shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip on 01 Sep 13:45 next collapse

lemmy.zip/comment/21190669

dontbelievethis@sh.itjust.works on 01 Sep 13:51 collapse

But that is just monero isn’t it? When I say alternative I mean feature parity.

shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip on 01 Sep 14:08 next collapse

Ah, yeah. Kuno is Monero only

cecilkorik@lemmy.ca on 01 Sep 15:23 collapse

When it’s Visa, Mastercard, and the banks and governments responsible for fiat money itself who are cracking down, you’re going to get exactly the “feature parity” you’re asking for anywhere that is using that money. It’s time to start looking into alternative currencies if you want to escape their control.

“Monero, it’s not just for criminals anymore” (or maybe it is, because they’re trying to make us all criminals if we don’t adhere to their definition of “moral purity”)

WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works on 01 Sep 16:49 next collapse

maybe liberapay, but they too depend of payment processors like stripe and paypal

asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev on 03 Sep 14:32 collapse

Apparently one of the devs got a confirmation from NLnet for a grant, so GNU Taler will probably become another payment option in Liberapay.

github.com/liberapay/liberapay.com/issues/1309#is…

nlnet.nl/project/TALER-Liberapay/

WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works on 03 Sep 16:42 collapse

that sounds great!

humanoidchaos@lemmy.cif.su on 02 Sep 13:50 collapse

We should normalize just sending them money directly through crypto.

Why have more middlemen than we need? It it because we’re idiots getting taken for a ride?

I know what I’ll put my money on, every time.

yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca on 01 Sep 13:30 next collapse

OP, this was three months ago

flamingos@feddit.uk on 01 Sep 14:06 collapse

They even had a banner on the site for a little bit about how successful they were able to transfer support from Patreon:

web.archive.org/web/20250610153337/…/catbox.moe/

indomara@lemmy.world on 01 Sep 13:33 next collapse

What is cat box?

underline960@sh.itjust.works on 01 Sep 13:36 collapse

Image storage platform, like imgur.

indomara@lemmy.world on 01 Sep 13:46 collapse

Really?? Christ, people need to advertise it there, Imgur has been imploding and the community has no idea where to go. It’s been sad.

underline960@sh.itjust.works on 01 Sep 13:49 next collapse

I’m not sure it’s a one-to-one fit.

It’s not a community; it just hosts images. There’s no comment section, for example.

indomara@lemmy.world on 01 Sep 13:52 collapse

Aah, ok. Sad. ❤️

kubica@fedia.io on 01 Sep 13:59 next collapse

Lol, I see they haven't improved... anyway...

Chozo@fedia.io on 01 Sep 14:56 collapse

I think they need money first, before increased traffic.

hisao@ani.social on 01 Sep 14:15 next collapse

I hate catbox. I can’t see images posted via catbox because for some reason catbox is very actively and aggressively bans VPNs. Yeah, you heard that right: they ban VPNs, not only for posting, even for viewing! I managed to find one VPN server that worked well… for few weeks. Until it got banned as well. Someone once said catbox is a honeypot. Idk about that, but their VPN policy is definitely honeypot-tier.

Added: What’s even more funny - imgur also used to ban VPNs, but my current server, at the moment I picked it I choose by criteria that both imgur and catbox and some third service should work, and few weeks later imgur still works while catbox don’t, which means catbox bans VPNs more aggressively than imgur! Really makes you hmmmm.

Added: After reading SatyrSack reply I’m not sure anymore. Maybe it was too rash to blame Catbox. It’s unclear who or what is responsible for the block, maybe neither the source nor the destination.

Wildmimic@piefed.social on 01 Sep 14:55 next collapse

I don't know what VPN you use, but i have zero issues running Proton VPN and accessing catbox. Maybe some VPN nodes are used to attack Catbox and they are temp banned?

Chozo@fedia.io on 01 Sep 14:59 next collapse

I'll be honest, I don't mind a free file host banning VPNs. Yes, VPNs have tons of legitimate uses, but they also have illegitimate uses that (what I understand to be) a one-man team is likely not prepared to deal with. They already have to deal with CSAM getting uploaded as it is.

hisao@ani.social on 01 Sep 15:58 collapse

but they also have illegitimate uses that (what I understand to be) a one-man team is likely not prepared to deal with

This would be somewhat believable excuse if they only blocked uploading/posting under VPNs. But they block viewing under VPNs as well, which you only do if your sole purpose is logging IP addresses of viewers. In this scenario catbox images posted to Lemmy for example, they don’t only reveal your IP the moment they are loaded when you scroll your feed, they also associate it with the site from where the request was initiated (your Lemmy instance).

Chozo@fedia.io on 01 Sep 21:56 collapse

This would be somewhat believable excuse if they only blocked uploading/posting under VPNs.

With CSAM, you want to block uploading and downloading, because both are problematic for a host.

In this scenario catbox images posted to Lemmy for example, they don't only reveal your IP the moment they are loaded when you scroll your feed

I'm 99% sure it doesn't work that way. The Lemmy instance caches a preview image for posted links. But scrolling past without clicking a link will not expose your IP to Catbox unless you have an auto-preview setting enabled that opens/caches every link you scroll past automatically, which I don't believe is enabled by default.

hisao@ani.social on 02 Sep 01:22 collapse

With CSAM, you want to block uploading and downloading, because both are problematic for a host.

At that point, if such content is already posted there and available for download, it doesn’t matter if it is only allowed to be downloaded via clearnet or VPNs as well. Blocking VPNs doesn’t make any difference here.

I’m 99% sure it doesn’t work that way. The Lemmy instance caches a preview image for posted links. But scrolling past without clicking a link will not expose your IP to Catbox unless you have an auto-preview setting enabled that opens/caches every link you scroll past automatically, which I don’t believe is enabled by default.

I’ve seen a debate regarding lemmynsfw with some people asking to turn off caching/proxying for images. I don’t know what’s their current status on this, but on my instance even thumbnails were not visible for catbox images. I’m not sure if it’s disabled or it’s the instance server itself having trouble accessing catbox.

Chozo@fedia.io on 02 Sep 02:07 collapse

At that point, if such content is already posted there and available for download, it doesn't matter if it is only allowed to be downloaded via clearnet or VPNs as well. Blocking VPNs doesn't make any difference here.

My understanding is that it's for tracking/reporting purposes, and to mitigate future offenses by banning those IPs. You can report an IP to an ISP for CSAM violations, but it's not as useful when the user's on a VPN.

I've seen a debate regarding lemmynsfw with some people asking to turn off caching/proxying for images. I don't know what's their current status on this, but on my instance even thumbnails were not visible for catbox images. I'm not sure if it's disabled or it's the instance server itself having trouble accessing catbox.

Yeah, I've also noticed that Catbox links don't seem to generate previews on Mbin, as well, so I suspect that may be a Catbox block of some sort. That's interesting... I wonder if that causes a Lemmy instance to attempt a live preview instead of giving you a cached one. If so, that seems like something that probably shouldn't be in place, IMO.

hisao@ani.social on 02 Sep 03:09 collapse

My understanding is that it’s for tracking/reporting purposes, and to mitigate future offenses by banning those IPs. You can report an IP to an ISP for CSAM violations, but it’s not as useful when the user’s on a VPN.

Don’t think even the most extreme actors go that far, link could be opened accidentally, etc…

Anyway, from what another poster here linked, it looks like Catbox might actually not be banning any VPNs at all on its own, this might be some kind of middleware/routing infrastructure issue.

SolacefromSilence@fedia.io on 01 Sep 15:12 next collapse

No VPN here and can never see catbox files, it's like they're gone already

TheOneAndOnly@lemmy.world on 02 Sep 10:37 collapse

Do you use Verizon for Internet? It’s been my experience that the only way I can open catbox links is if I’m not connected solely to Verizon’s network.

SolacefromSilence@fedia.io on 04 Sep 03:10 collapse

Hmm, I'll have to try that... not Verizon directly but a MVNO that uses their network. Thank you for mentioning

TheOneAndOnly@lemmy.world on 04 Sep 03:13 collapse

Let me know what you find out, would you?

SatyrSack@quokk.au on 01 Sep 17:35 collapse

Their FAQ lists multiple reasons that various countries, ISPs, etc. block CatBox, and using a VPN is often mentioned as the solution. Here is an archive of their FAQ that you should be able to read from any connection:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250822215754/https://catbox.moe/faq.php

hisao@ani.social on 01 Sep 17:53 collapse

Thanks, this is surprising! I assumed my VPN wouldn’t ever block anything, because I’ve never seen that before, and thus the block was Catbox’s fault, but from what they write in their FAQ I start to question this. Maybe there is some large scale intermediary/middleware/mitm that make this happen. Idk, this is the first time I see anything like this. The server I’m currently using is in Switzerland, but I’ve also had those blocks with multiple VPN servers in other EU countries.

tal@lemmy.today on 01 Sep 15:58 next collapse

Didn’t this happen a while back? I mean, I’m not saying that the financial issues are resolved, mind.

EDIT: Ah, yeah, some other people have pointed it out.

dumbass@leminal.space on 01 Sep 16:16 next collapse

Website says they’re 50$ short.

A_norny_mousse@feddit.org on 01 Sep 16:32 next collapse

I often use litter.catbox.moe (auto-deleting) because I can upload via command line. But it’s so slow sometimes that it’s unusable for e.g. including images in comments. Is that also the case for catbox.moe proper?

elvith@feddit.org on 01 Sep 16:48 collapse

When I click on catbox.moe images on Lemmy, I don’t see a difference between being on a VPN, my WiFi at home, on mobile data oder a random Hotspot. It either loads like back in the days when we had dial up connections or in >90% of the cases I get a connection timeout. It’s a pita to the point that I check the link on Lemmy before clicking on it and have a very hard time to not justify instantly down voting the poster for using that service.

A_norny_mousse@feddit.org on 01 Sep 16:57 collapse

OK so it’s the same. That’s sad.

Weirdly, the website loads fine, but clicking on the litterbox link just loads forever.

Interesting: the catbox FAQ mentions pomf.se which redirects to uguu.se which supports API uploading and is FLOSS/self-hostable.

humanoidchaos@lemmy.cif.su on 02 Sep 13:48 next collapse

How is catbox hosted?

If they’re renting VPS hardware, then they’re getting scammed.

They should set up self hosting with their own hardware and a VPN. It will cut down on the recurring costs significantly.

Don’t pay for others’ stupidity, if you can avoid it.

Feathercrown@lemmy.world on 02 Sep 13:54 collapse

I can never see catbox files anyways

Toes@ani.social on 03 Sep 04:27 collapse

That’s likely caused by your DNS provider blocking it.