What's wrong with XF 2?

[Azareal]

I feel like I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I've always loved xenforo and still do. Based on what I've read of XF 2's planned feature upgrades, it all sounds very exciting and it appears to be taking forums in the right direction.

I'm not into all the back-end stuff, which it seems is a lot of what people here have issues with, but the front-end and features don't seem that bad at all.

Things went a little off the rails here, debates about PHP rather than XenForo itself taking a lot of space with some more XenForo stuff mixed in.

I would be curious about what they're planning however.

 

[Carlos X]

I can understand running Windows on a home computer, particularly because everyone writes games (especially, the games), software, etc. for Windows while hesitating over Linux, but Linux is pretty much a no-brainer for a server.

I don't game much on Windows, but I do understand the notion. Windows is fine for computers, but as a server backend? Yeah, no. I'm not going to put my site in danger like that. Let me put it this way: Those Windows phones? Easily hacked. The Dreamcast console? Easily hacked, and have been hacked. Tablet? Easily hacked. Even though they designed the early Surface models to be completely different from the OEM shipped discs. I keep telling my mom that those are bad ideas, she never listens to me. Ever.

But home computers powered by Windows? Fine. It's stable now than ever before, anyway. That is the meat of what makes Microsoft... (for the lack of a better word...) "Special." Not Xbox, Not Tablets, Not Phones. Microsoft does have some innovations like the whole Xbox Live ecosystem. I'll give them that. But other than that, Microsoft is having an uphill battle in all three areas. They were late with Xbox, they were late with Tablets, they were late the Phones. Not only that, in the late 90's Windows and everything they were working on, were all hacked. So, it diminishes the brand enough that people are scared to even use it for environments like servers, phones, and tablets.

Anything can be hacked, including cars:
https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/bmw-smart-car-hacking.html

I knew this! 😀 😛

https://blog.ircmaxell.com/2017/10/disclosure-wordpress-wpdb-sql-injection-background.html
And sometimes, you have to screech and threaten to release a security exploit to the public to even get Wordpress, etc. to take you seriously, otherwise they just go meh.

That's because Wordpress is a non-profit. That means they can't do a lot of things a normal corporation would normally do. That's why, when they make these PR statements, nobody really cares. The software is actually open-source if you really think about it. It's a corporation with less than a thousand employees working to make sure Wordpress is hacker-proof or is a better software. It's also actually a collection of coders from all around the world contributing to a collective. That's why you think:

You really underestimate just how incompetent these people are.
Security vulnerabilities can and will fall by the wayside.

It's because Automattic has 717 employees as a private corporation, and combines their work with contribution from others all around the world.

I don't see why using a different code-base is that strange.
Languages are not all going to share the same implementation.

Having a different codebase/language isn't bad per-se, their particular codebase sucks! 😛

Nothing says "hack me!" more than a Windows server with an extension so obvious... *evil laugh*

I looked at a couple, but really, you said yourself that you're hitting a wall.

I was talking about the whole "Cloudflare scrapes your site and uses it for their gain," so I changed the subject to "Haven't you seen bad articles about Cloudflare?"

And sometimes, the admin doesn't even bother with a server like Nginx or Apache and just has the web app service port 80 / 443 directly.

I know what both are, but I am more comfortable with Apache than nginx. Some platforms like xenForo support nginx, but I don't see many sites powered by nginx, but I do see a lot with apache.

Wordpress aside (it's gotten to the point where Wordpress is PHP), a large portion of the world has been shifting to other models, they're simply not as convenient, but the prices have crashed for VPS' and WebFaction embraced the newer technologies to try to get a competitive edge over their competitors.

Hence the advent of "renaming" their products as "cloud." It's still VPS, but marketing is "Cloud."

It wasn't that long ago when Discourse was an expensive premium product which can only be run on pricey VPS'. Now, you can simply drop down $3/month to get the thing going, how the times change.

Still not recommended to go cheap for servers. "$3 for servers! Buy from us!" may be enticing, but you get what you pay for. That's why I rather pay more for servers than going cheap. The same is true for products.

I can only see more and more players hopping on. And prices will only continue to fall. First wave is always priciest.

Hopefully.

 

[Jason76]

In compatibility with a lot of hosts is a problem. In other words, some don't support the email, so you have to use a remote server (SMTP). Note, that could possibly be expensive. Anyway, as noted in another thread, one solution is to turn off email alerts - assuming your members don't mind.

 

[Azareal]

In compatibility with a lot of hosts is a problem. In other words, some don't support the email, so you have to use a remote server (SMTP). Note, that could possibly be expensive. Anyway, as noted in another thread, one solution is to turn off email alerts - assuming your members don't mind.

Is this a problem with XenForo specifically or would it apply to every software?

 

[Carlos X]

In compatibility with a lot of hosts is a problem. In other words, some don't support the email, so you have to use a remote server (SMTP). Note, that could possibly be expensive. Anyway, as noted in another thread, one solution is to turn off email alerts - assuming your members don't mind.

Is this a problem with XenForo specifically or would it apply to every software?

Any inbox works with XenForo, its his host. (Sorry, but it's true, @Jason76. [XF2] Go to ACP > Setup > Board Information > Enter your address in "Default E-mail address" and/or "Contact E-mail address." You don't need SMTP, but it improves your trust level with other hosts.)

But your mailbox has to be created before it can receive anything. Otherwise it won't go anywhere or the "catch all" inbox.

Also: That mailbox has to be your domain, and not those off-site domains like Hotmail, Gmail, and whatnot. Most e-mail services now employ new, and aggressive ways to combat spam, so if you use your hotmail address for your site, you can and will be marked as spam if you have thousands of members registering to your site. It's not so much the problem of receiving emails, it's unauthorized e-mails being sent.

 

[Jason76]

In compatibility with a lot of hosts is a problem. In other words, some don't support the email, so you have to use a remote server (SMTP). Note, that could possibly be expensive. Anyway, as noted in another thread, one solution is to turn off email alerts - assuming your members don't mind.

Is this a problem with XenForo specifically or would it apply to every software?

Any inbox works with XenForo, its his host. (Sorry, but it's true, @Jason76. [XF2] Go to ACP > Setup > Board Information > Enter your address in "Default E-mail address" and/or "Contact E-mail address." You don't need SMTP, but it improves your trust level with other hosts.)

But your mailbox has to be created before it can receive anything. Otherwise it won't go anywhere or the "catch all" inbox.

Also: That mailbox has to be your domain, and not those off-site domains like Hotmail, Gmail, and whatnot. Most e-mail services now employ new, and aggressive ways to combat spam, so if you use your hotmail address for your site, you can and will be marked as spam if you have thousands of members registering to your site. It's not so much the problem of receiving emails, it's unauthorized e-mails being sent.

Sounds interesting. I will look into it. This should save a great deal of pain. As you say, this is the real problem, not what I thought!