Topic awaiting preservation: Forum software

Let's say I wanted to set up a simple forum, and I don't want to program it myself. What packages would you recommend?

Desired features:
- CSS-based layout. I want to have a lot of control over the appearance, without having to modify the source code or even configuration files; that's what CSS is for.
- Simple, or at least easily made simple. I don't need crazy instant-messaging features and whatnot; if they're there I want the ability to turn them off.
- Secure, naturally.

Does the Grail fit this description, and is it available for that sort of thing? What else is there?


 

http://punbb.org/

It's been quite a while since I've posted on these boards. I'll assume you are looking for a free solution so Invision Power Board is out of the question, correct? A really good board is called MyTopix although it's still in development. I am awaiting for the final release. It is VERY promising. When the site comes back online, you should check it out: www.jaia-interactive.com

Another good one is SimpleForum. http://simpleforum.net/

Hope that helped somewhat. Also, stay away from PunBB. I have personally had nothing but bad expieriences with it.

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Hmm, PunBB was looking pretty good. Can you elaborate on a couple of your bad experiences?

I am looking for something free.

I've had my eye on and had recommendations for http://www.minibb.net/ but thanks to reisio for the punbb, it looks daggum good, very nice indeed

@ Slime:

I was helping run a small community on games and anime which was using PunBB @ the time. The entire board was hacked, forums deleted, and private member information accessed, as well a nice profane and disgusting photo and message placed at the top of the index. I can't tell you how they did it, frankly I don't know. I wasn't the webmaster, merely a forum admin. Beyond that, I haven't encountered much PunBB but then again, after that... I won't use it.\


@ JKMabry:

MiniBB is pretty good. For something simple, do check it out. It's a pretty nice software. I've used it before and would recommend it. Good software. I personally use the lite version of SimpleForum (which is free). I found I could customize it nicely to fit my site and it is very* minimalistic.

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Do you know which version you were using? If it's progressed much since then, maybe it's not a problem anymore...


 

I honestly don't remember. This happened about 4 months ago, give or take.

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Also highly recommended is MercuryBoard


Justice 4 Pat Richard

PunBB does look great.

I've been looking for this type of thing as well, and was coming close to resigning myself to phpbb, and tearing out all the stuff I *didn't* want.

I would love to hear from anyone else who has experience with it.

It seems, at least from the posts on the main page, that they have been dealing with their security issues....but what precisley that means, who knows...

if you google "punbb exploits" you'll find the same ol same ol that affects all forum software, sql injection stuff here and there. Ifound no current exploits for punbb, looks like the last ones were in 1.2.4 and the changelogs at punbb show them fixed in 1.2.5 and more in 1.2.6

This happens with phpbb all the time (they have a nice alert in the admin panel now if they detect you need patching), just gotta keep things patched, popular softwares get found out, simple as that. I think Black Hat's experience was particularly nasty, sounds like an acquaintence with a grudge, normally hacked open source software will just a get a cover page "0wn3d!" or somesuch, nice little reminder to patch up

http://lussumo.com/

I'm liking that Vanilla one too, outcydr... very attractive and different. Thanks for the links everyone.


 

DL: I went to look at brothercake's forums to see if he'd done any more work on good tempaltes for phpBB (he had a lot of good work done when I last spoke to him). Looks like there may be another one for this thread in the works: http://www.brothercake.com/forum/