phpBB for Windows

User Reviews

• Great free fast & easy setup forum with great mods

  BOttavianoMay 31, 2011

  Pros

  Free, easy setup, many mods, great admin panel.

  Cons

  None yet that I can see.

  Summary

  Been using phpbb3 for about a month now and found it to be very easy to administer. I have very little css & php experience but was able to quickly modify my pages to my custom css. I have also added a blog and image resizing mod with little effort.

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• cant even figure out how to get the damn thing to work

  shurlockeAugust 1, 2007

  Pros

  couldn't even use it!

  Cons

  online instructions everywhere suck bad, they don't tell u where to get phpmyadmin, or mysql, write instructions as if you know how to use those latter two, and i keep running into dead links.

  Summary

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• Welcome to hell

  sammydavisroxAugust 11, 2006

  Pros

  Stay away from this like it is the plague! Or better yet, try asking your host about phpbb before you download it. When I first asked my host about it, they told me that the software was full of bugs and that I was probably better off with something else. But I couldn't find anything else at the time. Now I wish I would have listened. The whole system seems like it was designed and is now run by 5 year olds. And I guarantee you'll run into a new problem every week, regardless of your history in web design. Most of the things that you think should come standard in the software, aren't included. Instead, you have to download 10's - 100's of modifications just to set the board up to make it useable... ergo, some of the mods like the the descriptive time zone mod. Something as simple as time zones that list more than just GMT +1, 2, and 3 hours should be built into the software. How many people can tell you what GMT timezone they're in without further instructions? On their so-called "support forums" about 90% of the people there think mods like that should come standard and become exasperated thanking the person that made the mod. But they still wouldn't consider making it a standard feature if you stabbed them in the eye with the idea. There are dozens of other 'mods' that you would think should be built in but you wind up putting in months to install yourself. They have a mod called Easymod which is supposed to install everything for you. But more often than not, it fails.

  Cons

  And none of these modifications are 'easymod compliant.' They have a system set up to tell you if it is compliant with easymod and they do sometimes 'validate' the mods with the auto-installer, but they aren't actually sure if it's compatible. Therefore, the system never gets used and you really can't tell if it's going to ruin your whole board or not... until you install it. Trying to get help from their support forums, is like trying to get money to rain down from the sky. It's almost impossible. They have a search feature set up to go through (over 1,000,000 topics) but it doesn't work. More often than not, you'll run into a blank white page or be presented with 1 page of completely unrelated topics that gives you the option of going to one of the other page choices at the bottom of the screen, which leads to a blank white page. So now you're only choice is getting help from them directly. Oh, you don't want that... Good luck finding the right forum(s) to put it in. If you put it in the Support forum, they'll tell you it's a Dicussion problem. But if you put it in the Discussion forum, they'll tell you it's an operator error. More often than not though, they'll just tell you said something wrong in your message and lock your topic. They couldn't be any less friendly. You sometimes may get lucky enough to have another visitor of the forums answer your question for you but most of the time, those questions either go unanswered or they're received with hostility. Having phpbb is like having three wives. Imagine the stress that would bring, or just download phpbb and see for yourself. But you've been warned.

  Summary

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• Download problems

  robphil777July 22, 2006

  Pros

  If you visit their site @ phpbb.com you can get the latest download. I don't know why the link isn't updated but it shouldn't be a hindrance to downloading what seems to be a TOTALLY FREE and USEFULL program. Cnet use to have links to the publishers websites which I've always used to be sure that I had the latest download file. Apparently cnet has disabled this.

  Cons

  Not known at this time.

  Summary

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• sweet

  smart_phil_dude1February 25, 2006

  Pros

  this is very helpfull

  Cons

  Summary

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• Refusal to download = Bad review

  Overkill97January 12, 2006

  Pros

  Wouldn't download through Firefox, IE, or by using alternate links. Per previous reviews, it sounds like they've got a problem.

  Cons

  Summary

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• not bad

  darkcarnivalOctober 17, 2005

  Pros

  It's a good program for those who don't want to code their own. It is also better on updating security holes than other board software(counting vbulletin as well). it may get attacked more but that's only due to the huge fanbase it has(its just like how windows keep getting attacked alot)

  Cons

  support could be better, esp for those who are trying to find converters. can't tell you how many people I see get ignored when they ask for a converter that works for what they use and what version they use at that. In short, they seriously need to update their converter paks as most of those span to versions made 5 years ago. but support is something they need help on.

  Summary

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• Great

  testsimsAugust 14, 2005

  Pros

  Cool free download

  Cons

  Nothing

  Summary

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• Excellent OpenSource software

  Anon_July 13, 2005

  Pros

  It's free. The support is great, and can be moulded into any site. There are hundreds of individual skins available to make your site stand out, and the modding community is huge, with over 380 offical mods validated, and hundreds more in beta and at 3rd party sites. Incredibly easy to set up with a 2 step install system, and runs on free software, Apache, PHP and MySQL. Unlike other forum systems, this can be used on other database systems. MSSQL, Access, and Oracle among others are supported, with Firebird and SQLite being added in future versions. There is no bloat to it, all the essential features are there, and every other function you could imagine is available. It is also incredibly secure, provided you keep up to date with releases, is rock solid. It's incredibly flexible too. Being free it's suitable for small sites, and being open source it's also suited to the largest user base. The biggest forum on the web, Gaia-online with over 300 million posts posted by 2 million users with over 20,000 users online at any time uses phpBB as it's backend. It's really that stable. <p>And it's the only suitable open source forum. Most other true open source forums are minimal, and don't have everything it takes to have a fully functioning site. And others claim to be open source, but really aren't. Go with phpBB, you can't go wrong.

  Cons

  vBulletin fans

  Summary

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• great!

  maddudeonlineApril 4, 2005

  Pros

  there are so many 100% easy to customise <p>no ads <p>easy to install <p>classic <p>great support

  Cons

  the only con is like to code my own but thats just me :)

  Summary

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