Messageboard software

[Eternalknight]

Can anyone help me? The messageboards on my website have been plagued with pop up ads, and I am currently not in a financial position to pay the fees for them. So I am looking for an alternative, cheap (preferably free, with no pop-ups - banner ads are fine) and good messageboard service. Any help appreciated.

 

[hong]

Well, there's phpBB (www.phpbb.com) combined with MySQL (www.mysql.com) for the back end. It's all open source, so you don't have to pay anything. You will need a server to run it on, though.

Or you could start a Yahoo Group.

Or you could convince Morrus to open a new forum for you....

 

[DDK]

EZboard (www.ezboard.com) is probably your best bet. There are others like EZ Board out there that are, in all likelyhood, a helluva lot better, but you get a months free gold member status and you benefit from it being a network of messageboards (more traffic).

If you can handle a few bugs, ikonboard are offering free PHP messageboards. They're beta testing though so it ain't perfect and there's jack-all features.

Personally, you're better off just forking out $2-3 U.S. for server space (checkout http://www.parcom.net/ for a good service) and putting up your own PHP board, it's really not that difficult and if you want any level of performance above crap for a permanent messageboard that is going to grow at all, then this is the best option.

 

[Eternalknight]

Do ezboards have pop up ads after the first month?

 

[MJEggertson]

Do ezboards have pop up ads after the first month?

Yes. Losts. A helluvalot.

Unless you pay for them, I believe.

 

[DDK]

Yes. Losts. A helluvalot.

Oops. Lol, yeah, you're right, I forgot all about that because I have certain JS functions disabled which prevent popups. Sorry about that, ET.

I still recommend forking out $3 a month for a server package at parcom or some other, similar hosting service. $3 a month is FAR cheaper than any of those boards and gives you a helluva lot more functionality.

However, if you're as poor as I am then no doubt you're cringing at this advice. My advice, therefore, is to go to Google and use their DIRECTORY, rather than the regular web search, and navigate your way to a listing of free messageboard services. There are GAZILLIONS of them. And, like I said, ikonboard is giving free PHP boards so go to www.ikonboard.com and check them out.

As far as getting a service with no popups... well, there's always going to be some advertising with free sites. Can't you just turn popups off or get some software that does it?

 

[Eternalknight]

As far as getting a service with no popups... well, there's always going to be some advertising with free sites. Can't you just turn popups off or get some software that does it?

Yes I can, and in fact do. But it seems to annoy the hell out of people that visit my messageboards....

 

[digitaldark]

I would recommend www.phpbb.com ...

I use it for my message boards..and so does Green Ronin and Living Room Games....its rather easy to install, has no banners or popups, and is absolutely free (and it looks nice too... http://www.wikidninja.com/forum/


you do have to have a webhost that supports php, however, and you would need the space for it as well.

 

[Fyrie]

If you are running a windows server, check out the asp.net forums forums. They are free and really fast. I don't think they are highly customizable though.

 

[Psionicist]

I second the phpBB suggestion. Very powerful forum and in my opinion better than vBulletin (faster, not as "bloated", better coded and it's free too).

It's also very easy to install. Find a free webspace provider with PHP and MySQL installed. You can search at www.freewebspace.net for various hosting options. The rest is piece of cake. Just upload and follow the instructions.