Best Free Forum?

**izwar** · 05-01-2006, 12:08 PM

as of now im going to go with PHP BB any other suggestions or critiques?

**Cutter** · 05-01-2006, 01:08 PM

I would agree with that. Despite its issues, you benefit from having a large user base for support which doesn't existing for other free forum packages.

**izwar** · 05-01-2006, 11:58 PM

what issues does it have?

**etech-martin** · 05-02-2006, 03:28 AM

There are a few other forum softwares out there like SMF and MyBB, but I think you have made good choice by going with phpBB.

**John** · 05-02-2006, 04:06 AM

Punbb is a great free forum.

**izwar** · 05-02-2006, 08:26 AM

thanks apprecieate, the input

**Emancipator** · 05-02-2006, 10:18 AM

phpbb is good but has the same limitations other free forums have. I got hacked 3 times which is why i finally went to vbulletin. Having a large community get hacked is painfull.

**izwar** · 05-03-2006, 07:26 AM

o dam, that kind of scares me lol, what exactly happened when you got hacked?

**Emancipator** · 05-03-2006, 08:03 AM

i had to spend a good day trying to find out how they got in and regain control of my forum. They emailed all my users a link to a porn site and redirected my forum to the porn site. So yeah I had 5,000 + members going "wtf".

**izwar** · 05-03-2006, 08:51 AM

WOW, that sucks. Well i just did some research on PHP BB and they ahve a lot of what seem like good security Modifications, so i think im just gonna install those once i get the forum running. They have a double admin login page, account freezing after 3 invalid attempts and a bunch of other stuff so hopefully that will help.

Is their no chance of this happening on V-Bulletin?

**Emancipator** · 05-03-2006, 09:11 AM

phpbb cant hold a candle to Vbulletin. phpbb is how i got hacked. vbulletin has never been hacked on my server.

**Elvie** · 05-03-2006, 09:50 AM

phpbb has caused me grief twice. The first time I was on a shared hosting server and someone had an outdated copy of phpbb running - it was hacked and every index.html file in everyone's account on the server was overwritten. That was the last kick I needed to get my own dedicated server.

The second time - I had installed it over the last year to try out on one my domains. It was hacked and associated php files were changed again. It also had more spoof signups from spammers than legit people.

Rant: I've now officially had it using other people's scripts for blogs and message boards. Too much spam, hacking, fake signups, etc. I have one active message board that I've had up for 6 years. I programmed it myself and it has never had any of these problems. Now I'm thinking that investing the extra time into programming features myself saves me a lot of time down the road.

**izwar** · 05-03-2006, 10:15 AM

Thank you for your information, im probably gonna go with V Bulletin now as i want to avoid these problems in the future. So the secuirty of vbulletin is good? no hacking problems you guys have had?

**Emancipator** · 05-03-2006, 10:21 AM

vbulletin is THE best forum software. You wont get it for free, but you get what you pay for. Free is not an option i usually even consider with something of this nature.