Best free forum software?

RoldanLT said:
Alternative for XenForo :)
I want to try something new ;)
New Forum niche, new domain :cool:

Please suggest if you have some good experience (y)
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invision free is awesome if you don't want to download the packages. Mybb is for those if you want a package you need practice of uploading stuff.
 
carntheroos4eva said:
invision free is awesome if you don't want to download the packages. Mybb is for those if you want a package you need practice of uploading stuff.
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Wait are you talking about Invision 1.x, the old free version?

If so - no way in heck should you be using that, regardless of how good it may be. It was discontinued over 10 years ago and the patches stopped a long, long time ago. In addition to that it's PHP 3.x codebase means it's very inefficient and stands little to no chance of working on a modern host using PHP 5.5 or the upcoming PHP 5.6

Even the InvisionFree hosting service dont really use 1.x anymore, most of what they use is their own in-house product now as it was way too buggy, and full of massive security holes.

Final 'pro tip': avoid anything that makes use of any of the native PHP mysql_* or mysqli_* commands.
 
RickM said:
Wait are you talking about Invision 1.x, the old free version?

If so - no way in heck should you be using that, regardless of how good it may be. It was discontinued over 10 years ago and the patches stopped a long, long time ago. In addition to that it's PHP 3.x codebase means it's very inefficient and stands little to no chance of working on a modern host using PHP 5.5 or the upcoming PHP 5.6

Even the InvisionFree hosting service dont really use 1.x anymore, most of what they use is their own in-house product now as it was way too buggy, and full of massive security holes.

Final 'pro tip': avoid anything that makes use of any of the native PHP mysql_* or mysqli_* commands.
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I think XenForo itself is using mysqli.
 
RickM said:
...
Final 'pro tip': avoid anything that makes use of any of the native PHP mysql_* or mysqli_* commands.
Click to expand...

Actually, the mysqli_* functions are OK and are a good (and easy) upgrade path for legacy applications. Stay well clear of the mysql_* functions though.
 
euantor said:
Actually, the mysqli_* functions are OK and are a good (and easy) upgrade path for legacy applications. Stay well clear of the mysql_* functions though.
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Ok in the sense that they are supported, sure. But if you're shoving raw queries into them you need to run a mile from that code. Prepared statements exist for a reason :)
 
RickM said:
Wait are you talking about Invision 1.x, the old free version?

If so - no way in heck should you be using that, regardless of how good it may be. It was discontinued over 10 years ago and the patches stopped a long, long time ago. In addition to that it's PHP 3.x codebase means it's very inefficient and stands little to no chance of working on a modern host using PHP 5.5 or the upcoming PHP 5.6

Even the InvisionFree hosting service dont really use 1.x anymore, most of what they use is their own in-house product now as it was way too buggy, and full of massive security holes.

Final 'pro tip': avoid anything that makes use of any of the native PHP mysql_* or mysqli_* commands.
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no i'm not.

I'm talking about http://www.invisionfree.com it's the freebie version of invision that you have ready made. Already installed so that you don't have to upload it.

The fact that you want something along those lines just to muck around with it's ok. However you might decide to go with mybb http://www.mybb.com which is great as well.
 
RickM said:
Ok in the sense that they are supported, sure. But if you're shoving raw queries into them you need to run a mile from that code. Prepared statements exist for a reason :)
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, definitely. The mysqli functions do support prepared queries too, but generally they seem to be used the same way as the old mysql ones which is unfortunate.
 
carntheroos4eva said:
no i'm not.

I'm talking about http://www.invisionfree.com it's the freebie version of invision that you have ready made. Already installed so that you don't have to upload it.

The fact that you want something along those lines just to muck around with it's ok. However you might decide to go with mybb http://www.mybb.com which is great as well.
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Ah right that makes more sense than what I was thinking then :)

Technically it's zetaboards.com as they've not used Invision for a long time. Zeta seems to be their own in-house system now.
 
RickM said:
Ah right that makes more sense than what I was thinking then :)

Technically it's zetaboards.com as they've not used Invision for a long time. Zeta seems to be their own in-house system now.
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Yeah but it's something you don't have to download and then go through an uploading process if you are finding that annoying.
Proboards is good too. But it can be tricky because it's interface is difficult.
Your best software is xenforo. But if you are looking at free software phpbb3/invisionfree are great ones that are already installed.
Mybb is one you can install and upload that's similar to vbulletin software. Except you don't have the mysqli/mysql issues. You only have to worry about uploading the software. It's a bit like joomla where you have to download it and upload it to use it. Can be messy.
 
Micah Impulse said:
I haven't been in the free software market in ages.

Idk what current development is but I recommend SMF first and foremost then Mybb.

I didn;t care for mybb personally(My goodness after switching to XF and later IPB, the installation of add-ons is so much easier and faster with those 2 software vs when I used mybb) but it was decent.

Does Phpbb still require heavy edits when you install add-ons and what not?
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I didn't like mybb either, phbb was nice, SMF had too much spam problems. Just started a new forum using Fudforums, completely old school to the core.
 
Xenforo is by far the best forum software but I'm finding this Fudforum pretty interesting for a free script.
 
Tracy Perry said:
It's still not ready for prime time. It has some quirks in it's styling and I really don't like the fact that you can't have categories and sub-categories in it. The test site I had it running on I brought down. I was evaluating it to see if I wanted to replace myBB on one of my gaming sites - but I'll stick with myBB for now.
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How is your myBB gaming site coming along? Was it worth bringing down your test site for?
 

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