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If you check the src of the image on the hive.blog, its shows (src="images.hive.blog/640x0/https: //i.imgur.com/bQeAgSf.jpg"), where the imgur image is proxied from images.hive.blog.

Ah okay. Cheers. Interesting as it limits options a bit. Once upon a time on Steem, image upload didn't work, which is why I got an imgur account in the first place.

That's true, but I think it should not have been done like that. It's better to directly reference the image from the original source instead of having a burden on Hive servers.

Yep, I think so.

If you upload high resolution photos, and someone is scrolling through their feed on mobile data, downloading those photos is going to consume a large portion of their bandwidth. Proxying them through allows the hive front-ends to reduce the size of an image when it's previewed, saving you huge amounts of bandwidth.

images.hive.blog / https://images.hive.blog

The proxy also supports changing the image format. This is necessary because not every device/browser supports all image formats. That way you don't have to care about browser compatibility when you upload a picture, because the proxy will do so instead.

Yeah, that's the point I have missed. We do need it, thanks for explaining.