I am in need of a full featured free message board that wont get me booted from donhost or their resellers.
Is anyone out there using one they could point me to. I was using ultraboard (flat file database) but after a few hits they suspended the account. Donhost said it was using too much resources.
I think I need a mysql database?

Thanks
Robert

donhost :crap: :shiver smiley: :crap:
try out ezboard lol www.ezboard.com

Check out phpBB (http://www.phpBB.com/). If you can wait a little while, phpBB v2.0 is looking really cool.

Frank

I recently installed ikonboard 3 beta 7 and it's very nice. It uses DB database at the moment but they will have MySQL version soon. I am sure DB is still better than flat file database.

www.ikonboard.com

Originally posted by ffeingol
Check out phpBB (http://www.phpBB.com/). If you can wait a little while, phpBB v2.0 is looking really cool.

Frank

phpBB is exceeding its bandwith limit, again :rolleyes:
Makes me think perharps I should host them :D
So .... how do you know phpBB v2.0 is looking really cool? Is there any demo/screenshots?

cheers,
:beer:

I am pretty sure that their support forum is 2.0

dektong,

As far as I know, bandwidth on the phpBB site has not been a problem for a few moths. The hosting of the site has been moved.

There is a v2.0 board up at http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB2/. It's been up for quite a while.

Frank

Thanks for the link!
phpBB 2 does look good ... errr.... much better than phpBB 1.x :D
Hm ... too bad their site has exceeded its bandwith limit, I would want to view the features that come with v2 and download it (which I think I can get it through sourceforge). Anyway, good job for phpBB! That's definitely a big improvement on the look!!!

cheers,
:beer:

WOW WOW WOW phpbb2 ROX (on the look)
I am going to install and try it now :D

I am IMPRESSED

It's sill beta, so be warned. It's been solid and stable, but there are still a few things missing.

Frank

Originally posted by dektong
Thanks for the link!
phpBB 2 does look good ... errr.... much better than phpBB 1.x :D
Hm ... too bad their site has exceeded its bandwith limit, I would want to view the features that come with v2 and download it (which I think I can get it through sourceforge). Anyway, good job for phpBB! That's definitely a big improvement on the look!!!

cheers,
:beer:

dektong,

You are not missing anything. The features of v2.0 are not listed on the website, nor can you download it from there. It is in beta, not in full release. If you want to download it there is a thread on the forum at http://phpbb.sourceforge.net/phpBB2 where someone is putting up a CVS snapshot on a regular basis, but be warned: The CVS snapshot can have bugs and you should not expect your questions about those snapshots to be answered by the phpBB developers.

Try Burning Board. it looks identical to vBulletin but it's free thats right Free why pay $160 when you can get burning board free.


:D :D :D :D

Many of them 'look' like vBulletin, but do they function like it (backend and administrative)? That was the problem I had with phpbb. I participate on another board (company board for a script I own), and they use phpbb and the search functions are terrible, and I've used the admin and it wasn't as good. Haven't tried the newer versions, but I can tell you one thing... vBulletin does what you need it to do for large forums.

I'd like to have a look at the free ones again, but last time I looked at all of them and none were close. Be interesting to see if things have changed...

Anyone use vBulletin and can compare it (mostly admin and searching) to the new crop of free boards and the newer versions of the last crop?

Well, I used to be one of those "why pay when something similar is free". But after facing vb over, I realize "you get what you pay for".

Originally posted by Chicken
Many of them 'look' like vBulletin, but do they function like it (backend and administrative)? That was the problem I had with phpbb. I participate on another board (company board for a script I own), and they use phpbb and the search functions are terrible, and I've used the admin and it wasn't as good. Haven't tried the newer versions, but I can tell you one thing... vBulletin does what you need it to do for large forums.

I'd like to have a look at the free ones again, but last time I looked at all of them and none were close. Be interesting to see if things have changed...

Anyone use vBulletin and can compare it (mostly admin and searching) to the new crop of free boards and the newer versions of the last crop?

Take a peek http://community.iansoft.net

Have a look at ikonboard

Its administrative interface and the ability to let you customize is very good. It has "skin" ability and you can change it from its CSS, colors, or you can dig down to the HTML level, all from its control panel.

It is I believe comparable to VB in features and power. They will release a MySQL version soon for people who might have > 10000 users.

The current version is using DB database format and according to them is good for 1000 - 10000 users.

The standard comes as good as the one you can find on their own board and I have managed to modify it for my site effortlessly. It also gives you a "graphics dev kit" with a photoshop file that you can change the colors of the buttons etc.

Ohhhh recently after seeing phpbb2 board, I went and downloaded it (phpbb2 beta 1) and installed it... much to my disappointment that it looks just as ugly as the old version. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.

I am hoping that it will come out with some nice template as a default plus hope that it will have the features that boards like VB or ikonboard offers.


BTW ikonboard is free

muppie,

No offense (and way off topic) but which theme did you load that you think is ugly? I thing the SubBlue theme looks pretty cool.

Frank

ffeingol, none taken.... what I did was:
set up mysql database
changed config.php
opened the url...

Originally posted by muppie
The current version is using DB database format and according to them is good for 1000 - 10000 users.


Hm ... it's bad for <1000 users then ... :D

I like IB too ... Poll feature is also available on IB3 :) Administration is quite easy .... I am looking forward for the mysql version of it.

cheers,
:beer:

I don't necessarily have a favorite, but I can safely say that vBulletin wreaks havoc on shared servers because of the MySQL resources it takes up. phpBB is really nice, I haven't seen version 2, but it seems to be really stable. I can also say that the UBB is among the best in terms of CPU usage, as the topic files are stored as HTML pages. I haven't checked on either one of those lately, so my info may be slightly off.

I also see that UBBThreads seems to look promising. I was also anticipating OpenTopic in a free Sponsored mode, but that idea has disappeared in the past year and a half, unfortunately.

Originally posted by ShellBounder
I don't necessarily have a favorite, but I can safely say that vBulletin wreaks havoc on shared servers because of the MySQL resources it takes up. phpBB is really nice, I haven't seen version 2, but it seems to be really stable. I can also say that the UBB is among the best in terms of CPU usage, as the topic files are stored as HTML pages. I haven't checked on either one of those lately, so my info may be slightly off.


If this is true, why then many host insist the users to migrate from UBB to VB?

cheers,
:beer: