setting up a forum - advice and suggestions wanted

hi all, a small group of us (friends) are interested in opening a forum (don't sweat guys nothing to rival Wilder's) it won't be pc - security related. i am looking for recommendations for free ones(also preferably add, just by googling i have found three thetopfreeforum.com, mypunbb.com and invisionfree.com. i would greatly appreciate any other suggestions. i am very wary of privacy policies aswell.

any advice and suggestions?

betauser2

 

Copy/Paste images directly in the post area would be a good improvement in forum softwares.
Another good improvement would be that a string of spaces is allowed in the post area in stead of removing them and replace them by one space. Typing text in columns in a post area is almost impossible or very inconvenient.
Fixed spaces is also a possible solution (i.e. ctrl+space).

 

you could look into www.phpbb.com/

if it was me when i decided what to get i'd go to a security board that uses it and ask what to do to keep it secure. i suppose it's the same as your computer. use really strong passwords, keep everything up to date and turn off stuff you don't use.

 

I used to use Invision Free (when it was a free download rather than a free-hostsed service) for years (http://forum.205gtidrivers.com), infact we upgraded to the paid version before I stopped running my forum. Stable, scaled nicely to load balanced servers.
Real easy to admin and setup and manage users.

 

Problem with that is automatically uploading the image from your machine to the internet... it would definatly need a clientside plugin.

I think if you wrap text in code tags it works...

Code:

          10 spaces
                    20 spaces
          10 spaces
                    20 spaces

Col 1   Col 2                                           Col 3       Col 4
Col 1   Col 2                                           Col 3       Col 4

Does that help ?

 

any opinions on http://www.forumup.com/ ?

i can't seem to find a their TOS or Privacy policy

betauser2

 

Thanks for the tip, I will try it when I need it again.

 

I have used Ikonboard, that is a free and stable product, for more than 2 years now.
If you register you´ll get superb support if you run into any problems.
www.ikonboard.com

Regards/ Don

PS set up a MySQL database in the beginning. Then You don't have to convert later if your forum will be popular.

More information about modifying, skins a.s.o.
http://swarf.net/forums/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi

 

ooops forgot about this thread,

thanks for the help guys! I've settled for smf in the end (forums been up for a couple of months)

cheers