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Okay, I've had it. . .

E

Erik

Site Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 27, 2003
Messages
3,588
Location
San Jose, CA
I'm posting off-topic in the General Discussions area to get more exposure to this potentially sensitive topic:

I'm at my wits end with PHPBB, the bulletin board software used for these forums.

The software is free, so I can't complain too much, but there have been half a dozen new versions in the past few months. Every time a new version is released I have to update the board software in order to stay current and ahead of the hacks and exploits that the new versions fix.

It's getting out of hand and I'm ready for a change.

The most likely solution will be to switch board software from PHPBB to vBulletin. About 2/3rds of the biggest boards on the net use that software and I'm familiar with the interface. It's not too different from PHPBB in use, although it looks a bit different.

The main difference is that it is a retail product so I'll have to shell out a bit of cash for it. To me it's worth the reliability and lower hassle factor. Besides, I threatened to do this upgrade years ago! :)

Other options include ZeroForum and Invision but I'm not too fond of those, personally.

Does anyone have any thoughts, advice, opinions, concerns, questions, comments or good jokes? ;)

Erik
 
WEll did you hear the one about the man that ....... errr never mind..I'm no good at telling jokes...lol

Seriously though. Everyone that installs invision eventually end up installing something else. So I wouldn't recommend it as a better solution to phpbb...How much is that other board you'd have to pay for? If it's reasonable I'd say go for it for the reasons you mentionned.

Truth of the matter is I'm not sure if a commercial board is better than an opensource one other than to have someone to point the finger at when a problem occurs. If the board (commercial or other) do use MySQL then I would think that it's part of the problem. I would think that a commercial board that takes too many rights from the use just to ensure it's "security" isn't truely a better solution to the problem :).

My two cents ;-). But I'm sure that there is better than phpbb though :).
 
Back in the mid '80s I authored BBS software than ran on an XT in New York City for about two years.

If I had to do a forum (which I will get to eventually) it will be in the form of a telnet BBS. I think the days of ANSI animation are long past, but I'd like to use something a little more primitive than these bulletin board systems. A low end Linux system running on a 486 could handle the traffic pretty easily.

That idea doesn't help your discussion for today though .. just food for thought.


Mike
 
Fortunately, I never had to install or administrate a phpBB, but I've understood it takes quite some hand work to upgrade between versions, which I find much remarkable.

AtariAge moved from phpBB to Invision a while ago. I've been on some forum running vBulletin too, and while I can't recall why, I didn't enjoy it so much. But Erik is the admin and should make the decisions.

The SQL end may be one source for injections and other hacks, and the PHP backend may too, but from what I understood, most serious flaws so far related to the application (forum) code.
 
carlsson said:
Fortunately, I never had to install or administrate a phpBB, but I've understood it takes quite some hand work to upgrade between versions, which I find much remarkable.
Click to expand...

It depends on the change. Most of the recent stuff is pretty simple, but having to do it every week or so is a pain.

carlsson said:
AtariAge moved from phpBB to Invision a while ago. I've been on some forum running vBulletin too, and while I can't recall why, I didn't enjoy it so much. But Erik is the admin and should make the decisions.
Click to expand...

IPB is on my list as well. It seems my host won't allow vBulletin so I may not have a choice! :)

E
 
Juat make sure that we can upload pictures onto the new software. We can do this at AtariAge.com, and its a lot of fun. I have a lot of cool stuff to show you guys.
 
Ultimate BB

Ultimate BB

I run an ISP and we use Ultimate BB. We never have any problems. There are some hacks that I know of, but overall we are problem-free. We do back up the sites daily, and also make an off-site copy just in case. Have you experienced hacker problems?
 
Re: Ultimate BB

Re: Ultimate BB

billdeg said:
I run an ISP and we use Ultimate BB. We never have any problems. There are some hacks that I know of, but overall we are problem-free. We do back up the sites daily, and also make an off-site copy just in case. Have you experienced hacker problems?
Click to expand...

No hacker problems yet. . . and I hope never :)

I'm not too familiar with UBB but from what I do know it's not much different than PHPBB.

I'd prefer vBulletin or IPB but my current ISP blocks both as too "resource intensive for a shared environment."

They strongly suggest SMF, but I'm not really a fan.

E
 
I wouldn't recommend SMF though. At least not to the common client. I mean it does the job, fairly well...but it's very different than what people expect from this type of program. IMHO of course ;-)
 
I find it amazing that the ISP even knows about which forum is which. I doubt anyone on the web hotel(s) I am customer of would know the difference. Either you could run anything until they find that you are overusing the system, or they probably would ban all kinds of forums to start with.
 
mbbrutman said:
Back in the mid '80s I authored BBS software than ran on an XT in New York City for about two years.

If I had to do a forum (which I will get to eventually) it will be in the form of a telnet BBS. I think the days of ANSI animation are long past, but I'd like to use something a little more primitive than these bulletin board systems. A low end Linux system running on a 486 could handle the traffic pretty easily.

That idea doesn't help your discussion for today though .. just food for thought.


Mike
Click to expand...


Hm... a telnet BBS would be fitting for a vintage computing site... mabye two versions, a php and a telnet BBS. People could access it on the vintage computers themselves, if they could handle terminal emulation.
 
Just a follow-up on this for those that might have been curious.

I've cooled off a bit and have put any plans on hold. I really want to run vBulletin but my hosting company doesn't like that product.

I'm left with two choices - either stick with PHPBB or change hosts and boards in one shot with the expectation of effort and downtime. . .

As it stands PHPBB hasn't put out an emergency update since the initial post in this thread. For the time being I'm going to suck it up. . . :)

Erik
 
Erik said:
As it stands PHPBB hasn't put out an emergency update since the initial post in this thread. For the time being I'm going to suck it up. . . :)

Erik
Click to expand...


Ok, so now that this version is "stable" does that mean it's time for them to put out a version upgrade to introduce new bugs?

--T
 
Terry Yager said:
Erik said:
As it stands PHPBB hasn't put out an emergency update since the initial post in this thread. For the time being I'm going to suck it up. . . :)

Erik
Click to expand...


Ok, so now that this version is "stable" does that mean it's time for them to put out a version upgrade to introduce new bugs?

--T
Click to expand...

They've been working on that (and threatening release) for over two years now. . . ;)

E
 
If it's a vote, vBulliten. I can recommend a good web host too if you need one.
 
Re: Okay, I've had it. . .

"Erik" wrote:

> I'm posting off-topic in the General Discussions area to get more
> exposure to this potentially sensitive topic:

...

> Other options include ZeroForum and Invision but I'm not too fond of
> those, personally.

> Does anyone have any thoughts, advice, opinions, concerns, questions,
> comments or good jokes? ;)

Definitely don't pick Invision. Since Post 1 Malc @ http://www.cpczone.net/boards/ crack the cranky at my post- apparantly he forgot to put in a Rants section (and have a series of can't do's setup on this forum!). The system is a bit more flexible since I signed up though. Sorry, I can't be of much help.

CP/M User.
 
Erik said:
Just a follow-up on this for those that might have been curious.

I've cooled off a bit and have put any plans on hold. I really want to run vBulletin but my hosting company doesn't like that product.

I'm left with two choices - either stick with PHPBB or change hosts and boards in one shot with the expectation of effort and downtime. . .

As it stands PHPBB hasn't put out an emergency update since the initial post in this thread. For the time being I'm going to suck it up. . . :)

Erik
Click to expand...

hosting company? try bluehost company they have a few extras that you may overlook. check this link for more information about bluehost: http://www.hosting-buyers-guide.com/re/2005bluehost/ ;)
 
Erik said:
I'm posting off-topic in the General Discussions area to get more exposure to this potentially sensitive topic:

I'm at my wits end with PHPBB, the bulletin board software used for these forums.

The software is free, so I can't complain too much, but there have been half a dozen new versions in the past few months. Every time a new version is released I have to update the board software in order to stay current and ahead of the hacks and exploits that the new versions fix.

It's getting out of hand and I'm ready for a change.

The most likely solution will be to switch board software from PHPBB to vBulletin. About 2/3rds of the biggest boards on the net use that software and I'm familiar with the interface. It's not too different from PHPBB in use, although it looks a bit different.

The main difference is that it is a retail product so I'll have to shell out a bit of cash for it. To me it's worth the reliability and lower hassle factor. Besides, I threatened to do this upgrade years ago! :)

Other options include ZeroForum and Invision but I'm not too fond of those, personally.

Does anyone have any thoughts, advice, opinions, concerns, questions, comments or good jokes? ;)

Erik
Click to expand...

Quite whining! j/k

If you open a donation fund, I can pitch in.:cool:
 
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