Forumotion. Yes or no?

[Justin]

Instead of a long a complicated post, mine will be in... dashes!!! 😀

- Slow servers
- No backups for your own keep
- crap support (I was banned from their support)
- Horrible forum layout
- They act like they are cooler than they ever will be.

I hate them.

 

[David]

And, almost every FREE forum host is like Forumotion ( not giving you the forum's database, limiting you with limited features, etc... Forumotion is just the best free forum host that you'd find on the Internet.

Really? You just listed two of the most important things; database and features that make it a genuinely good or bad host.

@Marc, Do you remember that time during January where all the server information were being transfered? A great 1 week of downtime, with occasional glitches in the coming 2 weeks. People lost posts, topics, members and the list goes on. Just about 2 months ago, Forumotion introduced global announcements. Wow, and many free hosts include that, eg. forumer, because they use REAL recognized software, not cheap bits from other software. I'm surprised IPB, vB, SMF and phpBB haven't placed a cease and desist notice on Forumotion for stealing their codes as noted by Dion (the so called coding expert). But then again, Forumotion is in the decline of good forums, so it wouldn't matter :roll:

 

[Deleted member 4320]

Spoiler

So, you guys above are saying that you wouldn't join a forumotion forum because they don't let you export the forum's database? lol.

I understand if a forumotion forum is hacked, then you wouldn't want to be a member or visitor a forumotion forum because the hacker can insert a malicious script in the forum or use frames to malicious scripts on the index of the forums. But silly little comments like the ones above wouldn't make you NOT join a forumotion forum. And, for the ones that says, "It is easy to hack", try hacking a forumotion forum first then say if it's easy to hack or not. ( most of you don't even know how to hack then comment saying something is easy to hack when you can't even hack a simple website with a security hole )

I said from the first page of this topic already, I don't care what host they're using, as long as it loads quickly, the host is trusted and the content is useful, then I'd join. ( even if the forum is freely hosted by a free forum host )

If you are a forumotion forum owner, then you'd have to worry about the database of the forum and what features they don't offer you for your forum. And, almost every FREE forum host is like Forumotion ( not giving you the forum's database, limiting you with limited features, etc... Forumotion is just the best free forum host that you'd find on the Internet.

Also, for people that talked about forumotion support not as good as you wished it to be, then look at other hosting companies and compare it to Forumotion. NameCheap domain support & GoDaddy hosting support takes about 2-3 working days to get an answer to solve your problem. With Forumotion, if it's not a coding problem ( because most forumotion staff are clueless when it comes to CSS problems or template editing problems or scripts ) , then you'd get an answer back in less than 1-5 hours. ( They should have hired that Dion dude when they had the chance... RoNo is fine but doesn't answer a lot of problems like Sanket )

And, to all the staff of advertising or promotion forums, without FREE forum hosts, your members would be limited by a lot because they're the ones that joins your advertising community to advertise. So, you people of all people, should love FREE forum hosting companies.

With all due respect Marc, you are being defensive about ForuMotion because you have a FM forum, lets face it, compared to a real forum, FM is rubbish and looks bad as well. I don't pay attention to FM so I wouldn't know, but FM recently introduced global announcements? They were available in phpBB 3.0.0.

 

[StripesAndFins]

I wouldn't not join a forumotion forum just because of the host. I definitely wouldn't make a forum with it, but I may still join if the content and loading time is good.

 

[Jay]

@Marc- It's my opinion so it's not really silly. You're the one that's silly. Forumotions security sucks, if you say that it's not easy to hack a Forumotion forum, then what explains the 5 minutes it took too hack Forumansion? They defaced the whole template. Yeah, they got it back in an hour or so, but it just goes to show how easy it is. I'm not saying that it's easy as 123 and anyone can do it, but it's easier to hack a forumotion forum than it is to hack a regular hosted forum with FTP, etc.

Posted with TouchBB on my iPod touch

 

[CyberFreak]

So, you guys above are saying that you wouldn't join a forumotion forum because they don't let you export the forum's database? lol.

I understand if a forumotion forum is hacked, then you wouldn't want to be a member or visitor a forumotion forum because the hacker can insert a malicious script in the forum or use frames to malicious scripts on the index of the forums. But silly little comments like the ones above wouldn't make you NOT join a forumotion forum.

Those are the reasons why i would not join a forumotion forum, even as a member. The reason being is because i spend alot of time around forums, i know how bad they are and things like no backups help set up a bad image of the host in my mind so that does encourage me to stay away from any forum they host... even if they don't exactly affect me directly.

 

[Marc]

Really? You just listed two of the most important things; database and features that make it a genuinely good or bad host.

Let's face it, you're not going to find this so called, "good host" from a free hosting company.

@Marc, Do you remember that time during January where all the server information were being transfered? A great 1 week of downtime, with occasional glitches in the coming 2 weeks. People lost posts, topics, members and the list goes on. Just about 2 months ago, Forumotion introduced global announcements. Wow, and many free hosts include that, eg. forumer, because they use REAL recognized software, not cheap bits from other software. I'm surprised IPB, vB, SMF and phpBB haven't placed a cease and desist notice on Forumotion for stealing their codes as noted by Dion (the so called coding expert). But then again, Forumotion is in the decline of good forums, so it wouldn't matter :roll:

Well, what do you expect from a free forum host? You're not paying money to the company so that they can give you what you want. You're getting it for FREE... And I never said that Dion was an expert coder. I don't even know the guy. I just saw him giving forumotion support to other members and decided that he'll be a good addition to the forumotion support team.

With all due respect Marc, you are being defensive about ForuMotion because you have a FM forum, lets face it, compared to a real forum, FM is rubbish and looks bad as well.

That's not the reason why I'm being defensive about ForuMotion. My forum is moving to another host and I'll still be defensive why I'd join a forumotion forum or another free hosted forum, as long as I can benefit from the content which the forum offers, 😉

My point just states that I wouldn't judge the forum's host when I'm going to join forums. And without free forum hosts, then forums like ForumPromotion.net would be decreased in activity ( because you can make a forumotion forum in less than 3 minutes, then join FP to start advertising it ) , so with less activity, there would be less new members on this forum.

@Marc- It's my opinion so it's not really silly. You're the one that's silly. Forumotions security sucks, if you say that it's not easy to hack a Forumotion forum, then what explains the 5 minutes it took too hack Forumansion? They defaced the whole template. Yeah, they got it back in an hour or so, but it just goes to show how easy it is. I'm not saying that it's easy as 123 and anyone can do it, but it's easier to hack a forumotion forum than it is to hack a regular hosted forum with FTP, etc.

I don't know what happened to ForuMansion, but I heard that Rok's hotmail was hacked then the defacer defaced the forum and they had to wait some hours or so, to back up the forum. So what if you can't use FTP to connect to the forum, they hacked the hotmail account and got access to the forum to deface it.

Also, what are you talking about I am silly? I never said your opinion was silly ( everyone is free to say their opinions ) I'm saying that I don't care about what host it is for me to join a forum, read my quote below.

I said from the first page of this topic already, I don't care what host they're using, as long as it loads quickly, the host is trusted and the content is useful, then I'd join. ( even if the forum is freely hosted by a free forum host )

#########

Those are the reasons why i would not join a forumotion forum, even as a member. The reason being is because i spend alot of time around forums, i know how bad they are and things like no backups help set up a bad image of the host in my mind so that does encourage me to stay away from any forum they host... even if they don't exactly affect me directly.

You can backup the forum, but they don't give you the database to move your forum to another host. I already said my reasons why I would join a forum even if it's hosted by a free forum host.

 

[NBK*Twitch]

As long as it is running,has a decent community,and looks good I will join. The host doesn't matter to me unless it sucks.

 

[David]

Let's face it, you're not going to find this so called, "good host" from a free hosting company.

I know that ProPhpBB is much better than Forumotion. They offer much better features and abilities than Forumotion will ever have. At least they use real recognized software.

Well, what do you expect from a free forum host? You're not paying money to the company so that they can give you what you want. You're getting it for FREE... And I never said that Dion was an expert coder. I don't even know the guy. I just saw him giving forumotion support to other members and decided that he'll be a good addition to the forumotion support team.

We're not paying money, but they gain money through forced ads, domain costs and upgrades in storage (if it's considered an upgrade). You end up losing while they continuously make money out of more and more forums, and novices don't even know what they potentially doing. Dion is an expert coder; he brags about it, but I know he is. Forumotion should never hire him; he goes around asking for paid work and was given a warning because of that.

 

[Umbreon]

avoid forumotion forums at ALL COSTS. I had my forums hacked with FM in the past, but that was 3-4 years ago.

Their support sucks. So something bad happened...

Spoiler

I complained about the hack and they banned me. Then after telling my friend about the hack and getting banned at FM, he just got on a rampage by spamming the whole support forums. The spam attack was so big they disabled the forums for almost 2 weeks just to clean up what my friend did to the forum (created 70+ spam accounts, with about 2-350 posts each). My friend is somewhere out there. Really bad decision...

Alot of stress with them. I would say NEVER USE FM! ProPhpbb is good enough.

 

[Ascent]

No, I wouldn't, because I don't join free hosted forums.

 

[Marc]

I know that ProPhpBB is much better than Forumotion. They offer much better features and abilities than Forumotion will ever have. At least they use real recognized software.

You see, there are many unskilled people using ForuMotion, so they can careless about the forum software. All that they want is to create a forum for free. I can tell you, I'm going to benefit when my forum starts all over again when I switch hosts. ( there are many backlinks pointing to my forum from ForuMotion ) Sure, I can't use the current database, but I can use 301 redirects to the content of my forum while using my old top level domain name and still get traffic from search engines for my popular search terms. And, vBulletin software is going to give optimizing my pages a kick once I switch hosts. ( once new people join and asks questions, it's going to be indexed quickly on Google, Bing & Yahoo )

We're not paying money, but they gain money through forced ads, domain costs and upgrades in storage (if it's considered an upgrade). You end up losing while they continuously make money out of more and more forums, and novices don't even know what they potentially doing. Dion is an expert coder; he brags about it, but I know he is. Forumotion should never hire him; he goes around asking for paid work and was given a warning because of that.

Every company has to make money some way or the other. If I start my own free forum hosting company, then I'd attempt to make money from it but I'm not because ForuMotion dominated the search engine for their keywords and I'm too lazy to work harder than ForuMotion. They get thousands of back links for every new forum people creates and thousands of users links to them everyday...

I complained about the hack and they banned me. Then after telling my friend about the hack and getting banned at FM, he just got on a rampage by spamming the whole support forums. The spam attack was so big they disabled the forums for almost 2 weeks just to clean up what my friend did to the forum (created 70+ spam accounts, with about 2-350 posts each). My friend is somewhere out there. Really bad decision...

Wow! Maybe you should ask that friend to submit your links to free link directories for you every once in a while, lol. ( just don't spam the directories )

No, I wouldn't, because I don't join free hosted forums.

Reasons? If the forum was an Internet Marketing forum and someone was buying any top level domains for $40, would you join and sell your top level domain names? ( not that anyone would do such a thing... but just an idea to see if you would or wouldn't. )

 

[Umbreon]

FM is just... like phpbb except its 10x more horrible. I would NEVER join a FM site (unless completing a package)

prophpBB owns FM at anytime and anyday...

but a real webhost is better. 100x better than FM or prophpBB.

 

[GunsNroses]

Way to go, http://www.Forumotion.com!

 

[Aki-P]

Never.

 

[AnAccount]

I have to agree with all the no's. For any beginner admins you do need to stay away from here because it will void your knowledge of phpbb and totally confuse you when you got to actual phpbb. I was one of those people who made the mistake of doing a forumotion forum in my first years as an admin. Let's just say it wasn't pretty. Anyways, i have to agree that is simply horrid. Everyone has basically hit the nail on the head here.

My very first host was Forumotion, and it downright sucked. First off, it's not PHPBB3, it's really PHPBB2 but they pass it off as PHPBB3. Secondly, the ACP is not like that of an advanced hosting site or even like that of ProPHPBB. So if you must use a free host, stay away from Forumotion and use something that actually is based on PHPBB3 like ProPHPBB. At least on ProPHPBB you can have subforums. I was not very happy with Forumotion during the year that I used it, and had that been a paid host at the time, or even now, you would not expect me to be a customer for very long anyways.

A little more about Forumotion's ACP: Way too basic. Looks like something that was thrown together in about 5 minutes. Loads of sites have been cracked/hacked more on Forumotion in recent months than just about on any other host. ProPHPBB has a real ACP, you can have subforums, and that gives you the real basics of what it's like to use PHPBB3's ACP.

 

[Andraž Rihtar]

If its a good forum then why not? I mean, does it really matter which company hosts it if its working normally and if the community is great.

 

[DigitalCyanide]

As someone who had tested more many free forum hosts I will say Forumotion ranks in the top 3, hands down! If I were to use a paid host I would use Invision!

As for the comment about ProBoards? Are you serious? Really? 94% of the things you can customize in ProBoards have to be done via CSS, and you better make sure you put that CSS in the right area or you will have a huge mess. I used them for a couple years until I stopped hanging out with a host that caters mostly to kids. I am not bashing ProBoards, just stating that if you want real professionalism and the ability to have multiple HTML pages this is the worst choice you could make.

Forumotion not customizable? That's funny. It's just as comparable to any other free host for customization ( using the nice and easy image editor or CSS ), you can customize almost everything. The average person creating a free forum may not know much about CSS, HTML, or GFX design. So ease of access and some solid templates are what they look for. Ads? Yeah, there's one add and it can be disabled for members. Once you log in the add goes away.
As for not being able to create a web site around a FM forum, that's a lie. Forumotion allows a user up to 50 HTML pages around your forum. So creating a full blown free website isn't that hard if you know how to write the actual HTML coding.
I have used Forumotion for a few years now, and have had only one major issue. The site I have set up now is just that, it's a website. Centered around the forum. I started with a template, and then created all the images myself and installed them. Took some time, but was worth it. Since I have a free site that offers free Daz Studio and Poser content I need the flexibility of those HTML pages. Forumotion was what suited my needs best.
In the end it's all a personal choice and people should go with what their needs are and not what others say is best. What's best for you may not be the best for others.

 

[David]

As someone who had tested more many free forum hosts I will say Forumotion ranks in the top 3, hands down! If I were to use a paid host I would use Invision!

That's subjective, and not useful for a new user choosing between something like ProPHPBB and Forumotion. The obvious, and forward looking option would be ProPHPBB due to its easy ability to transfer hosts and it being on a REAL copy of PHPBB, unlike Forumotion's PHPBB.

Forumotion not customizable? That's funny. It's just as comparable to any other free host for customization ( using the nice and easy image editor or CSS ), you can customize almost everything. The average person creating a free forum may not know much about CSS, HTML, or GFX design. So ease of access and some solid templates are what they look for.

I've worked with Forumotion before and have seen its minimalistic ability to change important parts. Try editing the footer of a PHPBB forum, and adding a simple HTML link - impossible. How about trying to edit PHPBB3 as a whole - impossible. Instead users can only opt into an old copy of PHPBB2 or PunBB to edit their files, which is really pointless as PHPBB2 and PunBB (especially) are outdated and not supported officially. Also, the lack of features on Forumotion was overwhelming for 2-3 years. There was no global announcement option for a long time, and only recently added this year by popular demand. I mean come on, it only shows that Forumotion doesn't use a genuine PHPBB copy, rather by investigation by a member called Dion, it had several parts off other softwares including IPB, vB and SMF.

Ads? Yeah, there's one add and it can be disabled for members. Once you log in the add goes away.

That's beyond the point. How are you going to get members if they think your forum is full of ads? Also, you can't add your own Google Adsense ads without some dispute from Forumotion. They are making money for everyone who signs up with them, and yet they still have limitations.

As for not being able to create a web site around a FM forum, that's a lie. Forumotion allows a user up to 50 HTML pages around your forum. So creating a full blown free website isn't that hard if you know how to write the actual HTML coding.

But you have to include a link to Forumotion, which is petty and pretty much a forced ad. I'd rather add my host's link because I appreciate their service, rather than add it because I have to, by their TOS.

I have used Forumotion for a few years now, and have had only one major issue.

That's simply not true. There were 2 major down times during 2009 and if that wasn't bad enough, many users lost their content, let alone their whole forum, after the transfer to IBM servers. Also, the Forumotion security issue is a constant issue. I don't know now, but the last time I was there, you had to delete spam posts one by one, as there was no delete users post feature.

The site I have set up now is just that, it's a website. Centered around the forum. I started with a template, and then created all the images myself and installed them. Took some time, but was worth it. Since I have a free site that offers free Daz Studio and Poser content I need the flexibility of those HTML pages. Forumotion was what suited my needs best.

I know of many other places which could of suited your needs, and didn't require the link to Forumotion and PHPBB.

In the end it's all a personal choice and people should go with what their needs are and not what others say is best. What's best for you may not be the best for others.

True, but you should consider other options which give you more forward looking options. Unless you know a good deal of forum converting, you're stuck on Forumotion.