I always seem to be cheering for the losers. I briefly had a board on NoonHost, but scrapped it when I saw all that you can do on IPB. InvisionFree is great, you can do a lot compared to some places. It has minimum ads. Also, I've never owned a Macintosh in my life. I've always had an IBM with Microsoft software. I once had Netscape years ago, and thoroughly hated it. I love IE, Microsoft, and InvisionFree and am probably one of very few who still do ( ).

I agree that vB has better goodies at the admin (control panel) level. I don't agree that phpBB is less secure. I know that may sound shocking, what with all the phpBB patches. But my experience has been that the easier it is to see the code, the more bugs are found, and the more patches come out, and the more secure the thing gets. Something like vB, where only those that paid for it see the code, will have fewer eyeballs scrutinizing the code, and therefore fewer patches (giving a false sense of security). But those undiscovered bugs will still be there.

Anyway, after having written that, let me immediately disown it a little bit: I concede one thing about phpBB's security -- the team behind it doesn't do enough testing. The last few updates have had various problems that clearly came about simply because the team didn't try their patch on various installations. That's sloppy.

Also, I think phpBB missing the nested forums feature (or subcategories) is pretty big. If you need to group your boards like that, you just cannot use phpBB. There is a mod that will enable phpBB to do it, but it changes so much code that you're then pretty much stuck like that -- no extra mods for you, 99% of them won't install after that.

Having said all that, I use phpBB. I think it's fine. I modded one of my phpBB installations to redisplay forum posts as blog entries with an RSS feed and podcasts attached to it. That's pretty damn customizable. All but 1 of my mods installed via EasyMod 0.2.0a, so it was just point & click. Of course, before I used EasyMod 0.2.0a, I had to read the EasyMod forums, and patch up EasyMod by hand -- that's that sloppiness again, they released without enough testing, so I'm patching it up after-the-fact.

-Tony

Vb all the way. If I couldnt use vbulletin then I'd use XMB.

if you got the cash i would say vbullieten but if you dont phpBB all the way

I use php boards but that is because I'm familiar with other boards that use the same format. So when I wanted my own I stuck to what was familiar. I can't say I've tried anything else as I'm still a novice, and my boards are free, but I find them easy to use and quite customisable (for a beginner) what was posted above about displaying posts as blog entries and RSS feeds sounds like something I would like to do but I don't have a clue where to begin LOL

I post on another site which belongs to an author and the software they use is discus? It's a hideous tree structure and seems to have lots of problems. I've never seen anything like it. It reminds me of how file manager looked in windows 3.1 LOL

I really don't like PhPBB, it is too basic and doesn't have many features, hacks are hard to install, etc.
And I love Invision. But I am using a free service, and after all of that, I am doing good, and I enjoy it. And I am bad installing codes/hacks etc, so it's okay with me to use Invision Free.
About VBulletin, I think it is excellent. But it is expensive and I can't pay. If it not were for that, I would use it.

I use invisionfree because it's free and i'm poor

InvisionFree is good no matter what others say. At least you can change the look of the board and add cool hacks/codes/scripts easily and without having to replace files and all that crap.
And it is a big community, with many people, many skins and graphics available too.
So yeah, free services are a good choice, too. The only ads in Invisionfree are the google ads and that's all. No annoying popups and it's fun.

yes. plus it can look super cool in a small amount of time

Anybody else use a YaBB Forum?

What are the pro's and con's?