I Need to move out of phpbb

[skubaman]

Hi Guys,
I have actually purchased VB before for a company I was working for, and my experience was very good. But for that company it was a very clean copy of the program with no mods, and language was english.

Now, my current situation is that I have been running phpbb on one of my sites, and just recently I had 3 attacks and now my hosting company is telling me to look for another hosting.

I am tired of getting hacked all the time. The thing is that I couldn't keep up with the updates, because my site had many mods, so I couldn't just run the patch file, I had to do all manual updates.

So now I am looking for a solution that will give me less headache. I know that because VB is not as pupular as phpbb fewer people are trying to hack it, but I suppose it's still very possible.

How easy will it be to run updates?

What if I install some mods, will I have to do all updates manually?

I just can't imagine not doing any mods. Even some mods I do myself, cause I don't like to display certain options of the forum, I like to impose certain limits to my users.

Anyway, what could you guys say to make a point why it will be easier with VB? I was also looking at SMF.

Thanks a lot

[Pyrix]

vBulletin's upgrade system is excellent, and the updates are frequent enough to keep it secure, but not too frequent to be a pain!

Templates are stored in the database, and a lot of modifications can be made in the admin panel without even touching the files!

vBulletin also uses a 'plugin' architecture that allows you to add some quite advanced modifications without touching the physical vbulletin files. This means that upgrades are easy, you don't have to reapply 5 billion file changes, and the worst you might get is a database error where a plugin has changed a field and confused vbulletin, for example.

Take a look at vbulletin.org - it's full of modifications, most supported by their authors, that might give you an idea of the possibilities.

Ollie

[Pyrix]

I'd also argue that whilst vBulletin might not *seem* as popular as PHPBB, that might just be because of the cost, which stops everyone and their nan from starting a horrendous forum with no future ;)

Most vBulletin boards are actually utilised well, and have lots of members, but still remain secure.

Oh, and you can change quite a lot of what users can and can't do using the usergroups manager, again from the admin control panel.

You might like to get yourself an admin demo to play with.

Ollie

[skubaman]

Hey, thanks for your opinion. I will also look to see if it has Portuguese language and how easy it would be to import my phpbb messages and users over.

Thanks

[Pyrix]

There's no official language pack to my knowledge, but there are definately some portugese packs available...

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99151&highlight=Portuguese

Importing data uses a vBulletin app called 'ImpEx', see here for details:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156363

Hope that helps,

Ollie

[feldon23]

Could you list what mods you're using? A lot of things you need mods for on phpBB are built into vB.

[skubaman]

The ones that I remeber now are:
- users can post attachments
- admin can read private messages

I know there is more but I can't remember now.

[feldon23]

Attachments is built into vBulletin and they are imported from phpBB (the only phpBB mod that the phpBB ImpEx module supports)

Admin can read private messages is a controversial feature and is available at vBulletin.org. It does not require editing PHP files. I think you upload a PHP file and an XML file.

[skubaman]

I know it's controversial. I don't really read the messages, but I browse the subjects of the messages to see if anybody is spaming.

[SSSlippy]

From what im reading vbulletin will do everything you want and more.

[VietLang]

I used to run a phpBB forum over a year ago before I decided to move to vBulletin. With phpBB 2.0.xx you don't have that many options and it limits to what you can do so much that in my own estimation, you'll have to install around 20 - 30 Mods to make it looks and act like vBulletin. However, the more mods you installed, the easier for it to be resource hog for the server and more vulnerable to attacks. If you keep you phpBB forum up-to-date and still have attacks, then it's probably because of the mods you installed.

Here are a few things that vBulletin have right in the package that you'll have to install extra for phpBB 2.0.xx:

Attachment - It takes a long time to install this hack on phpBB. With vBulletin you can set the limit of disk space each user group can have for their attachments.

Sub-forum - Another huge hack required you to install on phpBB.

WYSIWYG Editor - You can edit your forum templates inside your Admin CP. For phpBB, you'll have to edit those .tpl files on your NotePad, FrontPage or whatever.

Rich text format - Not available in phpBB out of the box. I don't know if phpBB has a mod for it.

AJAX - Only avaible in phpBB Olympus, but I don't know how extensive it is. In vBulletin you have AJAX for Quick Reply, Quick Edit, double-click to edit thread title just to name a few.

Quick Reply - phpBB developers really hate the quick reply function with a passion that I don't think they'll ever make it as a standard. You'll just have to add those via hacks.

Multi-quote - You can quote many, many different posts in one reply. If phpBB 2.0.xx has it, it's via modification.

Plug-ins mods - Many mods available from vbulletin.org you can install via the plug in system without ever changing .php files of vBulletin. Thus upgrading vBulletin is much, much less headache than phpBB.

Fast and active development - phpBB 2.0.xx is roughly equivalent to vBulletin 2.xx and they were around for the same time. Since then you have vB 3.0.xx, 3.5.xx and now 3.6.4. Meanwhile phpBB Olympus is still in beta testing.

There are many more that you'll have to experience it yourself to know.

Good luck :)