Hi,

My host, HostAreUs, has the XMB forum available through the control panel. I can install basic scripts but have never installed or configured a forum script.

Questions for those of you with experience with it:

1. Is it any good?
2. Is it easy for a fairly new guy to scripts to install?
3. If no good what would you recommend realizing I haven't got much experience in this area?

Thanks,
Mark

XMB is a good lightwieght free MySQL/PHP forum. You can access http://XMBForum.com and get help from their community. IMO, VBulletin is one of the best, but XMB is good for the price. ;)

It's easier with the cpanel but you can install any forum without cpanel.

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Even though I think it's good, there are other free boards I prefer. phpbb and invisionboard. Both are easy installs for novices, in my opinion.

phpbb2 is my favourite free forum software http://phpbb.com. full of features very customizable. if i had to pick the best of the best though it would have to be vbulletin board but it costs about $75 a year last time i looked. vb is much better on server resorces as well from my expiriences. http://www.jelsoft.com

In updated versions of cPanel, instead of XMB being installed, phpBB is auto installed. I don't know if the older auto install is XMB 1.6 or 1.8 (probably 1.6) but their latest release of 1.8 is a huge improvement over 1.6.

Since I used to code with the group that makes invision board, I always recommend that one :) However their skinning template system is kind of strage and takes some getting used to. phpBB and XMB are both quite nice as well, and easy to customize/skin, though XMB always seemed to have a few small bugs overall.

Personally I use vB. Though all of my forums have started out on a free software, then been converted to vB once they were popular. I've used iKonboard 2.1.9 (Ahh, the classics), iKonboard 3.0, Invisionboard 1.0.1, phpBB 2.0.1, XMB 1.6, and XMB 1.8 (for like half a day, then I decided to make that forum vB.)

XMB is a good forum, easy to install from cpanel and easy to customize from the admin panel, not a lot of bells and whistles but it works good, XMB 1.6 has a security flaw that make it easily hacked, but its also easily fixed, just visit their website for that

I played around with XMB for awhile but I like Invision Board better. I'm using it now on my catfishing website.

Originally posted by dsotmoon
XMB 1.6 has a security flaw that make it easily hacked

1.8 (beta) has just been released to the wild.

Cheers

Gary

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. My preference is toward other free forums (Invision Board and phpBB, both of which are freely downloadable online), but XMB is a good lightweight forum.

Thanks for the advice. You people are great.

Mark

XMB is slowly becoming non-open-source software. Eventually, it probably won't be free. XMB is also known to be one the least secure message board software lines to date. I think one major flaw in 1.6 not fixed until a few months ago (even though it was released like 1 and 1/2 years ago) allowed people to delete/access members.

It's a flawed software, I suggest phpBB 2.0.3 or Invision Board 1.0.1 or 1.1 BETA 2. If you're still looking for something "light-weight" there is MiniBB 1.4 @ http://www.minibb.net/.

It seems to be simple for the new webmaster, and a quick thing for the webmaster with no time. :)

I've been toying with yaBB (www.yabb.info) recently. It's a bit advanced (editing color schemes and all), but that may be a road to take in the future. =P

I've been toying with yaBB (www.yabb.info) recently.

I had also considered yaBB, but I've noticed some hosts have banned use of file-based forums such as yaBB I assume due to server resource consumption.

XMB 1.6 can be auto installed with CPanel 4
good board but , not as great looking as Invision / PHPBB

PHPBB 2.0.2 can be auto installed with CPanel 5
great Open Source board.
with a great helping community at http://phpbb.com

Actually, yaBB has converted to PHP & mySQL (yaBB SE), rather than using flatfiles. :) That's one of the main reasons I was testing it out. It's much quicker, and it's not so heavy on CPU resources and bandwidth.