Photobucket Picture Hosting problems

This hasn't effected me just yet since I've paid for a good subscription to Photobucket (by accident) but when this year lapses, I don't plan on doing it again. I've seen where people are saying that they are going to use wither Twitter or Imagur to host their pictures. Are these good choices and are there others that are just as good?

Also, I have tons of images that I took with my phone of my kids birth and first 2 years of life. I simply uploaded them to Photobucket for easy access and as a means of storing tons of photos that I didn't necessarily want to have a physical copy of. Now, I'm worried that Photobucket is not going to let me have those (or hold them for "ransom"). Is there a good why to upload them from Photobucket to an external hard drive that won't be dictated or compromised by Photobucket?

Any help would be much appreciated.