Imgur Pro goes free for everyone, but all will see ads now

Popular image-hosting website Imgur just turned six, and to celebrate the occasion it made its paid Pro version available for free to all users.

Up until now, Imgur Pro was available for $3 per month or $24 per year, allowing users to take advantage of a number of added features. Imgur Pro users could store an unlimited number of images on the site, see complete image analytics and referrer data, enjoy an ad-free experience, and more. Imgur has made those Pro features available for free to all users, albeit the ad-free experience is no longer an option.

"On Imgur's first birthday, we announced Imgur Pro, a paid account that gave users the ability to support their favorite image sharer while getting some cool extra features in return. Today, we celebrate Imgur's sixth year, and we've decided that you're the one who deserves a gift. We're phasing out Pro subscriptions...and making the Pro features completely free for every Imgur user," touts a new post on the Imgur blog.

"It's been an amazing six years for Imgur. What began as a simple image uploading service has transformed into a community of the Internet's most dynamic visual storytellers. Imgur has become the best place to explore, share, and discuss the Internet's images-and we couldn't have done it without your support and loyalty. We're looking forward to many more years of uniting the universe through images with you. Enjoy the free stuff!"

So far, free accounts have allowed users to upload a maximum of 225 images, after which old images would be deleted, but now Imgur is allowing all users to store unlimited images.

As previously mentioned, however, popular Imgur Pro features are no longer in the cards now. Imgur Pro not only allowed users to enjoy an ad-free experience, but it also enabled them to increase the maximum size for images from 5MB to 10MB. These features are not available anymore, at least not for now.

While having Imgur Pro available for free is good news for users who didn't pay for the service, those who did are not exactly thrilled by this new offer. Imgur Pro users particularly complained about losing the ad-free version of the site.

"Just a quick message to say: this really sucks. I much prefer giving a company money to provide a service because it means that I am not the product. I would rather have had a price hike than having adverts served to me. I hope you guys listen to the feedback that will inevitably come as a result of this," one Imgur user wrote in response to the company's blog post.

Following such complaints, Imgur may reconsider this move to ditch the ad-free experience.

"Unfortunately we no longer support a paid option, but will certainly take your feedback into account," reads a comment presumably from an Imgur representative, in response to a user who asked whether they could still pay for the ad-free experience.

Lastly, users who paid for Imgur Pro within the last 30 days should receive a refund shortly, if they haven't already.