15 replies to this topic

[Donkey]

This is from another site I'm on.

phpBB. Probably the most widely used free forum solution, and in my opinion, also the worst. New to forums, many people consider phpBB to be the best. Just a few months ago, I did. But since I've been more educated about the world of forum software I've realised the evil, evil thing that phpBB is.

phpBB is actually often used by developers for their forums. Why? Only God knows. It's open source... so is MyBB... it's regarded as professional... but vBulletin more so. Let's look at this in more detail.

Security - it's a known fact that loads of 2.x.x versions of phpBB are completely exploitable and easy to hack. phpBB release security fixes at about the same speed that a snail eats through an entire lettuce. vBulletin, on the other hand, releases them nearly instantly after they have found the solution (which, evidently, takes phpBB a long time). But overall, if you're on top of the latest releases, the security isn't MUCH of a problem.

Many people new to forums (or noobs) use phpBB. Bad mistake, bro. It's the hardest to use admin-wise. Not only do all mods need to be manually installed, but to install the automatic installer (which is a mod), you need to make the manual edits. phpBB haven't once considered "Why don't we just add a mod installer?" Along with that, phpBB's source code is far more complicated than the alternative forum softwares and thus is more difficult to mod in the first place. With MyBB, vBulletin (and most others), it's a simple XML file upload and perhaps a few images/php files to upload, but no manual editing usually.

In a world of Ajax (if you don't know what this is, Google it) phpBB still haven't caught on. Every click is another page. They must love new pages so much, they haven't even installed quick reply yet in all this time (granted, it'll be coming).

The software is also seriously lacking feature wise, it's not caught on to telling people what users are doing in their profiles, profile messages, quick reply, WYSIWYG, ModX defaulting.

And best of all, the support is pretty bad too. The times I've been there, if lucky, I've got about one support reply and usually it hasn't fixed the problem. Not enjoying my time with phpBB, I actually abondoned my forum. A month later, phpBB was kind to be and had let the spam bots in (yes, it has terrible protection with them). My forum was kind of broken anyway, after attempting and failing to install a quick reply mod. I finally got my act together and decided to use MyBB. The transfer was easy, the forum better, everything was fantastic. I'm now using vBulletin, and you really can see the difference compared to phpBB.

So, if you own a phpBB forum... Check this out.

[Mark.B]

It's alright if you want a free board, though I personally would prefer MyBB, which I think is quietly amazing for free software.

[Fastas]

thats alot of useful info considering im gonan be attempting to start my own forum site in the distant future.

[Sunsettommy]

Fastas said:

thats alot of useful info considering im gonan be attempting to start my own forum site in the distant future.

I suggest that you stay away from phpBB3.

The Admin board is badly overloaded with redundant permission system,that I actually sweated when I had to work with it.A page for this a page for that and on it goes.

Try looking around using this link,to look at the Admin boards and the features that certain forum software has built in them.


Forum Software Reviews

I Hope this will help you.

[Wayne Luke]

phpBB might not be the best solution but it performs its purpose.

[Brandon Sheley]

I've always been a fan of phpBB for a free solution

[Mudora]

Wait, phpBB still doesn't have quick reply? I thought they added that to the 3x line.

[Sunsettommy]

Wayne Luke said:

phpBB might not be the best solution but it performs its purpose.

Sure it does since a lot of people us it,but it is not a good software for people who are starting out.

[Sunsettommy]

Mudora said:

Wait, phpBB still doesn't have quick reply? I thought they added that to the 3x line.

I never been a fan of quick reply.Therefore I never missed it when I was Administrating a phpBB3 forum,and was a Moderator on the old phpBB2 forum.

[Mudora]

Sunsettommy said:

I never been a fan of quick reply.Therefore I never missed it when I was Administrating a phpBB3 forum,and was a Moderator on the old phpBB2 forum.

Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of it either. I had to be poked about it a lot by members of my forum, but even then my forum's eventually having it was mostly because of the conversion to vBulletin from phpBB2. I'm actually surprised that phpBB still doesn't have it because it seemed that the availability of quick reply soon after the start of the phpBB3 release was this big thing everyone was talking about.

[Donkey]

Sunsettommy said:

Sure it does since a lot of people us it,but it is not a good software for people who are starting out.

It's a mod.

[Mopar1973Man]

I would say PHPbb is a freeware solution yes... But like said above the security and the pudates are weak at best. There was several report of sites being hacked and mods going bad. :doh:

But I would still suggest it to anyone that was going to start a forum and get there feet wet.

At that point I figured it was a good time to look towards VB or a paid solution...

[kevin]

Two things that REALLY turned me off phpbb - the security and the ugly default theme for phpbb 3.

About 4 years ago a couple of sites that used to go to were hacked - and they were hacked a LOT.  One forum closed forever and the other one converted to smf.

When phpbb 3 was released, it probably had the ugliest theme I had ever seen.

[qanthous]

I actually didn't realize a lot of that - I still really like PhpBB, but this made me think a bit..

[twhiting9275]

Sunsettommy said:

I suggest that you stay away from phpBB3.

Fully agreed. The admin side of phpBB3 just sucks. Nothing like making things 20x more complicated than they have to be for your staff!

[SupaDiva]

Fully Modded phpBB is the way to go; especially as it's free...ideal as a support site to your main site, but the ACP is not straight forward or Admin friendly!