General: Changes to my Blog

Watch Movies TV -

Starting today, there will be big changes to my blog. I regret to say that these changes will cause the quality of my blog to deteriorate.

Recently, Google changed the way its images are stored. I'm not bothered about the way it stores photos that I take with my phone. What affects me is the way that it stores the photos that I upload to my blog. It's a bit technical, so unless you're a blogger yourself you might not understand it.

In the past images were saved on the domain 1.bp.blogspot.com. The directory format changed over the years, but what was unique to all versions was that the original filename was retained. Now the domain has been changed to blogger.googleusercontent.com. That wouldn't matter in itself, but the original filename is no longer retained, and has been replaced with a 192-character tag. That's all under the hood and might not be noticed by most bloggers, but it bothers me. It doesn't fit with my blogging style. I like to tweak the HMTL code to make my posts look better, and this is now much more difficult with the new format.

I first noticed this change yesterday. At first I thought it was a bug. Then I searched online and found that it's a change made a few weeks ago which wasn't immediately rolled out to all users. It's not a bug, it's a new feature, and it's an ugly feature. I hope that enough people will complain to make it be changed back, but somehow I doubt it. The trouble with Blogger (unlike its main competitor Wordpress) is that it's a free product. I pay nothing for it. It's a gift from Google. That means that Google is very slow making changes. I can't demand changes in something that I don't pay for.

(Actually, I can use Wordpress for free, but I pay for it indirectly by ads being inserted that pay money to Microsoft).

There are a few workarounds that I can use:

1. I can accept the new image format and spend less time tweaking my HTML.

2. I can refrain from uploading images and only use old images.

3. I can start a new blog in Wordpress.

This morning I felt emotional and wanted to quit Blogger altogether. I am very, very disappointed. I can't express in words how bad I feel. Since then, I've calmed down. I've picked workaround 2. In future I'll use less images in my blog. I'll concentrate on my text. I'll either use old photos in my posts or no photos at all. I apologise for this. Blame Google.