Putting a FREE forum on my site.

Are there any free scripts available?

[Birdman]

I want to try a forum on my site and was wondering if there are free scripts available to download. I will search for free scripts on a SE, but I value WW members opinions on which are better. Thank you.
Birdman

[Nick_W]

There's loads of them. I rather likked [phpbb.com ]

Very easy, and quite professional.

Nick

[Birdman]

Hey Nick. Thanx. On the way over there. Was just looking at vBulletin. How does that one rate.
Thanx agin,
Birdman

[brotherhood of LAN]

Hi again Birdman,

Do you have a preference.....ie ASP / PHP sort of thing? Or will any do.

[lazerzubb]

[directory.google.com...]

[Birdman]

Hello brotherhood_of_LAN. I ask alot of questions, don't I. No, I don't really have any preference.

[Birdman]

Sorry, should have put this in last post. This is what my host tells me is available to me.
Available services:
Classic ASP
XML and SSI
FTP

web mail based interfaces
web colander/scheduler
email aliases and auto responders
Access to raw log files (upon request)
Daily backups
DNS services
sub domains
MSAccess database (suggest against their use due to the fact access is not
meant for a web/multi-user environment)
MSSQL Server
Dot NET services
flash/actionscript
perl/cgi
ODBC connections
SSL Certificates
Password protected directories
Windows media services
Real server media services
dedicated IP addresses
SQL server based mailing list management (limitations apply and all mailing
lists will be reviewed to ensure that spam is not sent out)
FrontPage 2000/2002 extensions (upon request only. Can not use FTP services
if enabled)
Weekly/Monthly backup services with media sent to you
Website counters
Custom Error pages
Monthly Site Maintenance
Search engine optimization
RealNames keyword services
Domain name registration
Additional bandwidth
Additional hard drive space
Custom database/e-commerce/graphics development

(edited by: Birdman at 2:09 pm (utc) on May 27, 2002)

[Woz]

I came across a good looking ASP forum over here [webwizguide.com] the other day which may be useful. I havn't tried it myself but the reviews seem good. It has both Access and SQL-Server versions and is FREE! The author is using it for his site forum so it must be OK.

No Affiliation.

Onya
Woz

PS - Hey Bird, you may want to edit you last post, you don't want to give too much away, all we need to know is the language, in this case, ASP and perl/cgi. - Woz

[bill]

Was just looking at vBulletin. How does that one rate.

I've been using it for a few years and can't complain. It's not free, but there is great support and a busy user community. Once you get over the initial learning curve it's pretty easy to customize and maintain.

[stevenha]

What forum do y'all recommend that looks similar to Webmasterworld, with few graphic buttons and SE indexable .html pages?

[theperlyking]

Birdman, I quite like ikonboard ( [ikonboard.com...] ) - free and was easy to set up. Doesnt need a database back end either which is a bonus as far as simplicity goes.

[txbakers]

Since your host allows Access and ASP, there is a nice Free board available at www.ultimateASP.com

I use it on my site, and it is easily customizable.

[sun818]

hey birdman -- Sounds like your web host runs off Windows. I would stick with an ASP based forum like WebWizGuide as mentioned by Woz. The developer provides a solid product and is very responsive to support questions on his forum.

Snitz Forum is another free ASP script. I think Snitz is slightly bloated so it will not perform as quickly as WebWizGuide.

I would stay away from Perl/CGI scripts as the Perl interpreter is "buggy" on the Windows server.

[Birdman]

Thank you Nick_W, brotherhood_of_LAN, lazerzubb, Woz, bill, theperlyking, txbakers, and sus18. I had thought this thread was dead. I have uploaded Web_Wiz to my server, but havn't implemented it yet because I'm still not sure how to set up my database.

What forum do y'all recommend that looks similar to Webmasterworld, with few graphic buttons and SE indexable .html pages?
stevenha asks...

I am interested in any feedback on this as well.

Thanx again,
Birdman

[Ove]

This one looks good too

Look [yabbforum.com]

/Ove