Cap'n Refsmmat Posted October 26, 2004 Posted October 26, 2004 What, in your opinion, is the best free forum software that can be placed on your own domain name (instead of yourforum.freeforums.com, it can be at yourforum.com)?
5614 Posted October 26, 2004 Posted October 26, 2004 vbulletin? dunno, couldnt you just get a .com address and write your own forum! though im guessing that might be a bit harder!
AL Posted October 26, 2004 Posted October 26, 2004 I ran php-nuke for a while. It was pretty slow and crappy, and then I got hacked by a hacker who graffitied my site with "this is what you get for using crappy php-nuke!" I never bothered to fix it after that. A little searching on the 'net actually yields step-by-step tutorials on how to hack php-nuke. How sad. I hear xoops is a little better, but I have no experience with that so I can't testify. Basically, don't expect too much from free software. EDIT: php-nuke has since been updated several times after my experience, so it wouldn't be fair for me to say it's still bad. Here are the relevant links: http://phpnuke.org/ http://www.xoops.org/
MulderMan Posted October 26, 2004 Posted October 26, 2004 http://www.phpbb.com - its either that or invision board, but im not sure if that still free.
bloodhound Posted October 26, 2004 Posted October 26, 2004 my mate uses a heavily customised NavBoard. http://www.marrouche.net/forum/
5614 Posted October 26, 2004 Posted October 26, 2004 "vbulletin isn't free" oh sorry, didnt know, well didnt think! "I got hacked by a hacker" thats unusual, people arent normally hacked by hackers!!! "Basically, don't expect too much from free software." couldnt agree more.
AL Posted October 26, 2004 Posted October 26, 2004 "I got hacked by a hacker"thats unusual, people arent normally hacked by hackers!!! Yeah, I did realize at the time I typed it that it sounded redundant, but I needed a subject to explain the next clause: "...who graffitied my site." I probably could've written "I was hacked by someone who graffitied my site," but same deal.
ed84c Posted October 27, 2004 Posted October 27, 2004 do these forum softawares require you set up a website under their domain?
Sayonara Posted October 27, 2004 Posted October 27, 2004 Each forum software package has different technical requirements, but obviously they all require that you have access to web space and ftp.
SubJunk Posted October 27, 2004 Posted October 27, 2004 i've found that the best is invisionfree. i've tried a few others, including phpbb. phpbb is good because you have all the files to upload to your server, but it's also full of ads for phpbb. invisionfree is still free, in reply to someone elses post. it's great to customise, you can pretty much do anything with it, and way easier too if you're not familiar with how forums work on the coding side. click on my forum link in my signature and you'll see how versatile invisionfree is, i've changed it so much it hardly even looks like invisionfree.
Sayonara Posted October 27, 2004 Posted October 27, 2004 phpbb is good because you have all the files to upload to your server, but it's also full of ads for phpbb. What ads are these?
SubJunk Posted October 27, 2004 Posted October 27, 2004 oh and Sayonara³, with invisionfree you don't need your own website, they host the forum on their site. i know you were talking about forum software and invisionfree isn't exactly that, but just thought i'd mention it.
SubJunk Posted October 27, 2004 Posted October 27, 2004 the phpbb ads are everywhere, at least in the latest version they are. especially in the user CP area. and the whole thing stops working if you remove certain ones.
Sayonara Posted October 27, 2004 Posted October 27, 2004 oh and Sayonara³, with invisionfree you don't need your own website, they host the forum on their site. i know you were talking about forum software and invisionfree isn't exactly that, but just thought i'd mention it. Cap'n specifically asked for forums to be hosted on your own space (well, he actually said on the 'domain name', but we know what he means ). If you check out his other thread about forums (now the "Join my Forum!" thread) you'll see he wants to get away from hosted solutions. the phpbb ads are everywhere, at least in the latest version they are. especially in the user CP area. and the whole thing stops working if you remove certain ones. Not in any current release version. I am running several instances of 2.0.10, which is the latest public release, and there are no ads in that. Never have been, and seeing as phpBB Group have said it will always be free I don't see why they would see the need to introduce ads. There is nothing about ads in the changelog, nothing in the news section, and nothing on the forums. If you are talking about 2.1.x, this is an unsupported rolling alpha test and you should not be surprised if it has over-enthusiastic branding and stops working at the drop of a hat. There is no way they could make it stop working if you remove ads, and it would be a breach of the license under which the forum is distributed if they did. If you are talking about 2.2.x, it doesn't actually exist yet, and won't rule out using 2.0.x when it is finally released. Are you sure you mean phpBB?
MulderMan Posted October 27, 2004 Posted October 27, 2004 the only place it has any sort of ads is the "Powered by phpBB 2.0.10 © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group" at the bottom, but you need that for the gpl lisence. maybe your thinking about the ads companies put in on hosted forums. does anyone know when invision board stopped bieng free?
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted October 27, 2004 Author Posted October 27, 2004 It was free when I got it a few days ago... Anyways, I've been having ideas for a huge forum (that's pretty much guaranteed to get members if I do it right) so I'd like it to have a good URL, not something like http://w89.freeforumboards.com/walawalawoo/forums/myforum/myforumindex/index.php or whatever. Rather http://www.myforums.com or whatever.
Dave Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 phpBB 2.2.x looks pretty damn nice, on a par with vBulletin. Just gotta wait a bit longer to get it
TheBigDino Posted November 3, 2004 Posted November 3, 2004 Web wiz forum is quite good http://www.webwizguide.info/
MulderMan Posted November 3, 2004 Posted November 3, 2004 if you can afford microsoft windows hosting!
mossoi Posted November 4, 2004 Posted November 4, 2004 There's barely any difference in price between Windows and *nix hosting. phpBB and Invision are the two that I would look into. Xoops is ok but it's more of a portal and is weaker on the forum side. PHP-Nuke is a mess, it's full of junk and tries to be everything to everyone. http://www.lobsterweb.com/wdf/'>http://www.lobsterweb.com/wdf/ - is a phpBB forum, no ads (other than my own google ads) and once you get going it's very customisable. http://www.lobsterweb.com/ - is a long abandoned Xoops site - you can get the idea of what it's capable of even though there's not much content.
SubJunk Posted November 4, 2004 Posted November 4, 2004 or you can get the best of both worlds (this is in reply to sayonara by the way) and redirect to an invisionfree forum from your domain name, after all it will save you bandwidth, or do what i did which is have the forum inside an iframe (click in my signature to see what i mean) By the way sayonara, will i go to hell for all this blatent advertising for my science forum on a science forum?
mossoi Posted November 4, 2004 Posted November 4, 2004 Both of those methods are fine as a quick fix but not very good for a forum that wants to build up a reputation. The iframe stops bookmarking specific pages easily and the redirect tends to look amateur. Why not just get some hosting and install a forum, it's far from difficult?
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