forum software and junk

[weirdami]

So, if one wanted to run an online websitey "forum" thing, but didn't want to bother with finding (and funding) shell-style hosting and software installing and whatnot, what would you recommend...that's free? I don't mean like a yahoo group, I'm mean like how AO has all these separate areas (I guess they used to be called SIG's) for things.

[weirdami]

Sure, I can look around with googleface, but word of mouthfingers adds to decision making easierness.

[EDanaII]

Take a look at phpBB.

[Zac67]

I've got some (very limited) experience with phpBB - but there's lots of others around...

[weirdami]

from that wikipedia page Zac67 recommended:
...remotely hosted services (such as Conforums, Hyperboards, Proboards, Suddenlaunch or vForums, and xForums (infestor and anoop)) which use their own proprietary software, rather than offering a package for download which webmasters can host by themselves.

Those are what I was getting at. I took a quick look and at least a few seem to be using the same software, at least they look like they do. (Don't google search "anoop", unless you want some surprising image results. :-o) So, I guess which to go with doesn't really really matter.

Does anyone recommend any of those "remotely hosted services" specifically or have any recommendations of others I should gander?

[weirdami]

I've been digging around the free forum hosting places and setting up test forums and whatnot. Most of them that I've tried have problems where if you want to change the style, the style doesn't change at all. Not even if you use their dialog box technology and type in a color. So, some seem neat beans, but the management business isn't so beans of neat.

Anyhoo, the latest one I'm trying is forumotion.com. Pretty much everything they have on there works so far. I'm leaning towards it. Anyone have any badness they want to share about that particular service? I don't wanna jump into something too fast because if it gets rolling and I need to switch services, the users will be very mad at having to start all over again and the reason for starting it in the first place was to have a place where people didn't have to keep having new accounts.

[DBAlex]

I've allways found Proboards to be good, however the forum styling is a little limited, but definitely easier than editing phpBB CSS files and also more secure (phpBB is easily hacked)

Alex.  :-D

[weirdami]

Do you think the hackability is lessened by having the software be managed by some dedicated forum hosting company? That's my theory that I'm hoping is correct.

[Argo]

http://www.createforum.com/

Free PHPBB forum hosting.

weirdami wrote:

Do you think the hackability is lessened by having the software be managed by some dedicated forum hosting company? That's my theory that I'm hoping is correct.

I would not count on it; a good thing to check would be to find out how often they update their software and compare it against the release of patches from the software vendor. if they won't give out this sort of info, run screaming for the hills! You might also ask to see report(s) from an outside auditor. Any reasonably competent provider should be having them done at least once in a while.

It would be nice if I could believe that these companies all do a great job keeping up with security and bug patches, but the reality is that most internet businesses that are not part of some large company run on a minimal budget and can't keep up with their workload. Asking to see some figures on their financial situation can't hurt, either.

[the_leander]

If you're looking for free hosting I'm currently trialing website of mine through a group called decenthost.info.

However, if you want a well supported, well looked after, bespoke solution, then look no further then extropia.co.uk, as operated by our very own GadgetMaster and Karlos. They're currently running my primary website. (Though the site isn't compatible with IE7 atm).

I'll avoid the blatant plugs for my own sites, though you've no idea how hard that was to do  :-D  ;-)