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View Full Version : Any really good free message boards out there?


sailorjoto
June 18th, 2001, 14:22
Are there any really good free message boards out there to put on a website?
el crapo
June 18th, 2001, 14:32
I'm under the assumption that you are looking for a remotely hosted board since the is the Free Services forum.

There are a couple:
revamp.net
coolboard.com
ezboard.com
xsorbit.com
everyone.net
bravenet.com

there are a couple more i think but i those are off the top of my head. Are these really good? I don't know. It depends on your specifications of a really good board.
martian
June 18th, 2001, 14:40
He could also look for non-remotly hosted boards...

than i would recommend Ikonboard, it's really good :)
whatevah
June 18th, 2001, 21:53
yeah... IkonBoard is prolly the best.. not to mention that it's free... :)


btw.. http://www.ikonboard.com
gyrbo
June 19th, 2001, 08:53
And phpBB it's even better, and faster: www.phpbb.com look at www.site-32.com/phpBB for an exapmle.
Satelk
June 19th, 2001, 10:03
vBulletin is the best if you have enough money to buy it.
Toefur
June 19th, 2001, 10:34
Remotely Hosted - everyone.net
Self Hosted - ikonboard

:)
whatevah
June 19th, 2001, 11:39
Originally posted by gyrbo
And phpBB it's even better, and faster: www.phpbb.com look at www.site-32.com/phpBB for an exapmle.

note if you don't have php... ;)
LastActionHero
June 19th, 2001, 11:50
Originally posted by whatevah


note if you don't have php... ;)

Ikonboard V3 just beat PHBB into history. Check out Ikonboard beta , it's awesome even in beta.

check out the test board at ibhackers.com

BTW if you don't know how to install Ikonboard Ibhackers.com will do it for free, just check the service section.
gyrbo
June 19th, 2001, 14:35
Ha, phpB is so easy to install you don't need anybody. BTW alpha 2 from phpBB is even better!
whatevah
June 19th, 2001, 14:54
/me senses a perl/php war coming up.. hehe

I'll settle this.. IkonBoard is better. there, it's over. ;)
sianews
June 20th, 2001, 13:07
Ikonboard is more then just better. The installer is so simple my dog could do it. It looks great, and the skin feature makes it so simple to edit the look and feel.
Mandrake
June 20th, 2001, 13:42
Originally posted by sianews
Ikonboard is more then just better. The installer is so simple my dog could do it. It looks great, and the skin feature makes it so simple to edit the look and feel.

Wish it would've worked when I tried to install it! :mad:
whatevah
June 20th, 2001, 13:42
yeah.. I was suprised it was so easy to set up... I figured that there would be a whole lot of files I'd have to edit...
sianews
June 20th, 2001, 13:57
Originally posted by Mandrake


Wish it would've worked when I tried to install it! :mad:

What happened?
martian
June 20th, 2001, 14:19
Originally posted by whatevah
/me senses a perl/php war coming up.. hehe

I'll settle this.. IkonBoard is better. there, it's over. ;)

indeed ;)
gyrbo
June 20th, 2001, 15:05
I think phpBB is better, you can adjust the header and footer files to fit your site. But ib is cool too. BUT it took a while longer to install. But I'm good at installing things, so it worked out fine: hosted.barrysworld.net/nanowd/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi
martian
June 20th, 2001, 15:23
with ikonboard, you can change the logo and the colors if you want, so it fits also
matdin97
June 20th, 2001, 16:33
Originally posted by martian
with ikonboard, you can change the logo and the colors if you want, so it fits also

PhpBB can do more than u imagine. Anyway IB is the good perl script but it use a lot of cpu resource...
LastActionHero
June 20th, 2001, 22:34
Originally posted by matdin97


PhpBB can do more than u imagine. Anyway IB is the good perl script but it use a lot of cpu resource...


Version 3 doesn't. They have re-written the whole code from scratch. Their search routine is so fast almost like vb. Version 3 is the best free board on the net.
Zef Hemel
June 21st, 2001, 09:47
Just for the record: http://yabb.xnull.com
gyrbo
June 21st, 2001, 10:27
I'm gonna start a new thread.
sinstailor
July 11th, 2001, 23:11
ezboard rules



here's mine....

http://pub21.ezboard.com/bmusiciansandfans
stealth_bomber
July 12th, 2001, 07:27
What about Snitz Forums from http://www.snitz.com? See a sample at http://ads.blackvault.com/messageboards/
stardust
July 12th, 2001, 08:47
Ikonboard 3.0 new graphics is amazing :cool:

I give it my thumbs up!!

Yabb gold is good but dun really like the graphics :mad:
Hellbound
July 12th, 2001, 17:03
I hate Ikonboard 3. But that's just me. 2 is better for me.

I've never used phpbb, but Gybro's considerablly smarter then me, so I'll take his word for it.

YaBB is nice. Not as good as Ikb2 in my opinion.
gyrbo
July 13th, 2001, 04:35
:o ;) :cool:
D-Orange
July 13th, 2001, 12:40
YaBB Gold is the best!!!!!!!!!!!
TJGuitar85
July 15th, 2001, 22:10
I like the board at boardnation.com

TJ
cowax
July 16th, 2001, 07:41
Originally posted by Zef Hemel
Just for the record: http://yabb.xnull.com

lol

Yabb will also be second best in the Perl world :D j/k

homepagetools.com hasn't been mentioned yet, dunno what they're like. Never tried them. Stay away from EZBoard, way too many ads and text links that want you to upgrade to a paid version.
cowax
July 16th, 2001, 08:22
Originally posted by TJGuitar85
I like the board at boardnation.com

hmm... just for spite I decided to signup. And for some reason I can't login. When using a wrong password, it tells me that either my user or pass is wrong but when using the right pass, the page just goes back to the login page. Oh well, no loss :)


Oh and BTW... They aren't related to remoteforums.com in anyway? They seemed to have gone down after a couple weeks and then this boardnation popped up, both using Yabb.
conkermaniac
December 6th, 2001, 03:17
Aimoo

http://www.aimoo.com/

Is the best message board service if you are willing to pay $4 - $5 every month or so.
Ashed
December 6th, 2001, 05:02
Originally posted by conkermaniac
Aimoo

http://www.aimoo.com/

Is the best message board service if you are willing to pay $4 - $5 every month or so.

I'd rather go with BoardNation. :cool:
conkermaniac
December 6th, 2001, 05:14
But can they really survive of donations?! I don't think so...
Seldimis
December 6th, 2001, 06:35
I prefer Ikonboard v2.1.9 because it supports Email Notifications.
Ashed
December 6th, 2001, 06:39
I believe the latest version of Ikonboard is version 3. ;)
DJsexie
December 6th, 2001, 23:35
with my limited experience...ForumCo is the best i've used so far...

http://www.forumco.com

it's very easy to use..and you dont even need to know nothing about PHP ot Perl..or other programming languages...
conkermaniac
December 7th, 2001, 04:19
Problems with ForumCo:

a) All they did was host a Snitz forum; really pathetic. You can get better Snitz forums freely hosted at ASP-Dev (http://forums.asp-dev.co.uk).

b) They have disconuted sign-ups. In other words, they're not accepting new users.

c) They have some of the most rude and uncaring support staff ever.

That's one user's opinion, at least. I used to use ForumCo, BTW. :)
Rich
December 7th, 2001, 09:58
IMO ezboard is OK if you want a free messageboard that is JUST a messageboard and nothing else, but in almost all other categories it sucks major ---!
:mad:
Rich
December 7th, 2001, 10:01
WTF?!! I can't say "---" on the forums?! Censorship sucks!
conkermaniac
December 7th, 2001, 19:01
Originally posted by Rich
IMO ezboard is OK if you want a free messageboard that is JUST a messageboard and nothing else, but in almost all other categories it sucks major ---!
:mad:

What do you expect? It's a message board service, so you should expect a good solid message board. Do you want a chat room, a guestbook, and a photo album as well? Then you should try Yahoo Groups or MSN Communities instead.

I think that ezBoard is a HORRIBLE free message board provider. Pop-ups, banners, mailing lists EVERYWHERE, and it gets very annoying. Also, they pretty much don't give ANY support to the free users (or at least very poor quality). Then, there's the problem that they're WAY overused and their board layout isn't so "unique" anymore. They have WAY too many empty boards with nothing on them. Just eating up space...
DJsexie
December 8th, 2001, 17:07
Originally posted by conkermaniac
Problems with ForumCo:

a) All they did was host a Snitz forum; really pathetic. You can get better Snitz forums freely hosted at ASP-Dev (http://forums.asp-dev.co.uk).

b) They have disconuted sign-ups. In other words, they're not accepting new users.

c) They have some of the most rude and uncaring support staff ever.



Well..I signed up before the deadline

rude and uncaring support staff?.......I don't need to email them for support anyways..
Ashed
December 8th, 2001, 22:44
Originally posted by conkermaniac
I think that ezBoard is a HORRIBLE free message board provider. Pop-ups, banners, mailing lists EVERYWHERE, and it gets very annoying. Also, they pretty much don't give ANY support to the free users (or at least very poor quality). Then, there's the problem that they're WAY overused and their board layout isn't so "unique" anymore. They have WAY too many empty boards with nothing on them. Just eating up space...

Were they ad-less before? I don't remember.
Well, I used to like it once when I didn't know anything better and when I didn't have a host that gives me the ability to install CGI, PHP scripts, etc. Now, ezboard just looks lame, IMO.
conkermaniac
December 9th, 2001, 01:17
Originally posted by DJsexie



Well..I signed up before the deadline

rude and uncaring support staff?.......I don't need to email them for support anyways..

I mean their e-mail support AND their terrible message board moderators.
conkermaniac
December 9th, 2001, 01:21
Originally posted by GRiN


Were they ad-less before? I don't remember.
Well, I used to like it once when I didn't know anything better and when I didn't have a host that gives me the ability to install CGI, PHP scripts, etc. Now, ezboard just looks lame, IMO.

Unfortunately, ezBoard was never adless. They always had banners, but now the number of pop-ups have reached a peak. EzBoard does look lame compared to most scripts out there, but as the scripts have gotten better, so have the message board services.

The main free scripts (OpenBB, PHPBB, Ikonboard, YaBB, and WWWBoard) are still comparable to remote hosts. Ikonboard and YaBB do not have good layouts and are just average scripts, IMO. While OpenBB and PhPBB are much better, they can only just about equal the best free remote hosts. Of course, they are all free (and the best remote hosts aren't).
The Red Guy
December 13th, 2001, 21:07
You left out Burning Board, XMB Forum.
[lhomme]
December 18th, 2001, 16:52
Anyone know which board consumes the least bandwidth?
niv
December 18th, 2001, 19:58
Originally posted by [lhomme]
Anyone know which board consumes the least bandwidth?

Phorum-like boards.
The Red Guy
December 18th, 2001, 22:15
Originally posted by [lhomme]
Anyone know which board consumes the least bandwidth? Something like a WWWBoard.
andyLee
December 19th, 2001, 01:37
Originally posted by [lhomme]
Anyone know which board consumes the least bandwidth?

I guess the board with gzip enable consumes lesser bandwidth.

For example phpBB2, xmb
conkermaniac
December 19th, 2001, 04:10
Originally posted by Hayama-kun


Phorum-like boards.

LOL, yes. Phorum sucks! :D
conkermaniac
December 19th, 2001, 04:12
Originally posted by Infection
You left out Burning Board, XMB Forum.

OK, let's add them in...But it still doesn't make much of a difference, does it?
The Red Guy
December 20th, 2001, 23:05
Originally posted by conkermaniac


OK, let's add them in...But it still doesn't make much of a difference, does it? It does. They are the BEST!
cheatpark
December 27th, 2001, 05:47
Originally posted by [lhomme]
Anyone know which board consumes the least bandwidth?

A forum which uses the less bandwidth is most likely to have the least features as well. For example, vbulletin is the best one with the most features but it takes longer to load than other boards.
Ashed
December 27th, 2001, 09:28
Originally posted by conkermaniac
OK, let's add them in...But it still doesn't make much of a difference, does it?

Haha, you just can't accept that these boards are much better than Aimoo, can you? ROTFLMAO
cheatpark
December 27th, 2001, 09:35
He's right. A board is a board. Not half a board.:D
niv
December 27th, 2001, 11:48
Originally posted by cheatpark

For example, vbulletin is the best one with the most features but it takes longer to load than other boards.

Wrong. Templates make a big difference.

1. UBB is worse than vBulletin, for vB has a special method that allows posts to be viewed before the entire page loads in IE.
2. You can strip the entire board of its design, then recode it like a phorum.

[add]
I should start grammar checking my posts. :p
cheatpark
December 27th, 2001, 11:52
The yabb forum on my site loads quicker than this one and I think the messages load first too.