Anyone?, they must be suffering from lack of updates.

There is this mythical IF v2 board coming out.. hey that was 14 months ago nearly now though!

IPB 1.3 is a pretty nailed on board to get hosted for free mind, you won't get much better.

They are still churning out servers, 13, so it remains popular for the under 14's who want to make a gamming forum where you can join up and take up a moderation position

Reminds me of school lunchtimes - more than half the younger (yr8 - yr 10) pupils sitting there away at their boards

Definetely stupid, I hate invisionfree. I hope they die.

Although I'm not ashamed to admit that that was my first forum (admin of) - so in essence, that's how I became interested in IPB those long 2 years ago.

Not for me, longtime phpBB user here, I never liked IPB much until version 2.0

Are they even allowed to use the term invison in their title of an upgraded or overhauled script??

Yes, thats under the old license agreement, there free to modify it as they wish.

they most probably got permission from IPS themselves.

http://s4.invisionfree.com/MagicMerlin/index.php?

I used to be a global mod on the bigest IF forum aswell :-

I never liked IF much due to their severe limitations and overpricing of added services. I had a board but quit it later and purchased IPB 2.0 for a better board.

I don't know why there's so much animosity toward InvisionFree. I think they do a fine job in providing a board for those not technically inclined to do so on their own, or for those who otherwise don't want to have a regular IPB. As for its longevity, well, the money for the amount of servers they have doesn't come from thin air, so they must be doing pretty well.

Agreed.

Remember, some of us came from IF. Like me.

Same here.

I don't like IF anymore really, same with IFSZ. But still they're doing a fine job if they're up and running still. Though they should come out with something new, cause IPB 1.3 is pretty insecure.

I think it's really funny how former IF users come into the IPS Customer Forums and immediately start bashing IF when they see other people doing it, but were (are) like "I wub InvisionFree, you guys are the best!" in the Public Forums at IF.

~ Jeremy / Former InvisionFree Staff

I still like InvisionFree. I even still host a community there.

I can still remember when you were active on IFSZ :-

I don't think the lack of updates, will make IF die out becuase as already stated, most of the people using IF are young and just want to make a mesage board with their mates and they probably don't even know that a new version is being made

And........ It's only because of IF that I found out about IPB . So even IPS is benefiting out of it, since they've got some of my money

I doubt it will last much longer with IPB 1.3, but I must admit its a good learning experience for those who don't know much about web design/programming. It's hard to deside if their going to last much longer, it's more a matter of mantaining those servers without pay.

Why do we bash invisonfree? there a darn good service infact I bet thnere are more custermers here that are not active forum members here who started off with invisionfree. About the vounderabiltys in 1.3 most are not SQL right? you cant get to the SQL databases in invisionfree.
Infact why is it just InvisionFree and not others like Forumer? why?

I don't think they'll last very long, because they're supposedly coding IF 2 themselves. I don't think the users will be happy with 2.0.

For once, someone agrees with me in the issue with IF.

I'll agree with that.

I started there too (and still am there, in a way) and my gut is saying they'll be around for a while. I see them as a good stepping stone for someone wanting to get into forum adminship then they step off after a while into IPB's.

1.3 provides excellent solutions for those who need a board. it's better than ezboard.

they'll be around for quite a while.

I like InvisionFree. It segregates morons away into a little area I never read, therefore making sure my brain cells don't implode.

Yes, if its free, only young people must use it.



Invisionfree has many advantages to IPB. They may provide FTP with the next version, and they already have quite a few custom coded features. InvisionFree is a brilliant service provider and it made me realise that IPB is still free and its by far the best free forum host.



Why not? IPB wasn't written in 7 days.



Anything is better than ezboard.



There are many good invisionfree boards. Yes, becuase its a free service, there will be a lot of abandoned, poorly run boards. There are many poorly run boards though that are licensed.

I wish IF complete success. It provides a simple, high quality, cheap and powerfull service, especially for those with little technical knowledge. Prove me wrong.

I'll pretend that comment on IPB not being built in 7 days made sense. Did I say it was? No. Did I even mention time? No. I said the users probably won't be happy with 2.0 as they think they will.

Hey, say what you will, IF is actually profitable with the advertising they have. So, you may not like it, but it's a nice little mini-business for them.

I doubt IF, Forumer, etc. will ever die off, since there are still so many moochers and forum newbies out there.

Yeah just look at ProBoards for any of you familar with it... it's a "home brewed" forum system that is coded in perl. Last time I checked I think they were putting server 62 online. So I'd say they are doing quite fine.

Nice...

I don't mind IF themselves, but I am worried about them advertising free Invision boards when the latest they have is 1.3. Invision has come a long way since 1.3, therefore IF don't exactly deliver on a claim to provide a free Invision board.

What I did mind was when one of the people on my forum discovered IF, and everyone ELSE went out and started one. Now there's a bloody brilliant idea... EVERYONE on the forum make their own IF board. Invision 1.3 may be (and definitely is) much better than EZBoard, but at least EZBoard has built in chat and a global membership. That's what IF needs, so if a half dozen people post you their IF URL, you don't have to go through with registering for each one. Not saying EZBoard is better, as it's otherwise utter trash, but that global ID feature is pretty nice.

And it's also annoying when those demigods give up on their IF, and everyone gets a bad taste in their mouth from the whole forum experience because one person wanted to play Admin for a day, started a community, then abandoned and later closed it on everyone.

When I see an IF link, it just tells me that someone doesn't care enough about their forum to get something better. Whether it's Invision or vBulletin (though my prefernce is IPB). Even Infopop (now Groupee) is better than IF because the admin had to pay for the license, it's not a freebie. (Though it should be, IMHO it's down there with EZBoard and the other ghetto ones.)

I've actually made two IF forums. The first one was just to try it out. I made it when the IF forums started appearing. I wanted to see the difference from an admin perspective. The second one I posted here about. It was an experimental board in which every member who made one post was promoted to Administration, with all the privileges. It was shut down inside a day.

So IF's cool for what it is, but it's not for me.

I was on ProBoards (http://nido.proboards30.com) before I came over to IPB. Version 4 is actually quite good as far as Perl BBS go, but YaBB2 easily trumps it.

or it could just mean at this time they cant affored hosting and a paid board (as in my cast)
Once aghen why do we olny bash Invisionfree and not other free forum hosts like forumer(note its the olny one I can think of at this time)?

i hate IF ... i got banned from there forums for saying somthing , and coz i posted to much.

+ there boards are seriously limited i hate it lol... last time i used it i punched my pc screen coz it sucked so much an i had to buy a new pc screen :-(

Because, whether good or bad, IF has a bad stigma associated with it. Also, it's been around longer than many other remotely hosted solutions, so it's had more time to build up a reputation. Also, IF will essentially never update. Sure, they keep talking about IF v2, but we all know it's a myth. At least with other services, such as ProBoards, there are version updates from time to time. Forumer, IF, etc. will always have IPB 1.3, and few, if any, will ever allow for hacks, mods, skins, etc.
For the first timer, it's a good start, but if you are serious about your community, you need to spend some cash. It's a given. : up:

They are already at 13 servers, so I dont think they will be closing their doors anytime soon

You seem to know the inner workings of Invision Free pretty well.

Given the fact that they essentially cannot upgrade to IPB 2.x, and from reading FAQ questions posted on the site, I gather that Brandon (Duffman) is writing a new board system for IF. As far as I know, he still goes to school, so it isn't a full-time job for him like it is Matt.

IPB isn't "still free".

As for I.F.

For and from my perspective, it's crap. However, that's only because I own an IPB license and know what's possible with IPB (v1.3 and v2.x).

As a service itself and for what it's offering, I think it's great. It gives people a place to start at and to learn from. Most of the actual hard work is done (installing, backing up, teeny little updates if necessary, etc). Just have to run the community and enjoy. After some time, a person can upgrade out of that enviroment. Makes sense to me.

Would I recommend IF to anyone? Well, if they are just starting out and need to have the high level stuff handled for them, then yes, most certainly I would recommend and encourage it. But if they can (or are wanting to) handle all the technical matters themselves, then I'd refer them to the trial, so they can give it a try and if it develops some success, they can buy a license and continue to grow.

Yes, he is. InvisionFree Version 2 will be a completely customized remotely hosted BBS. Kind of a like a PHP version of the unique ProBoards script. This is why I'm wondering why they will continue to call the service InvisionFree. After all, it won't really be eligible to carry the Invision name anymore, at least the way I see it. However, they've been talking about IFv2 for over, what? Nearly two years now? Surely they could provide some screenshots or something.

About the name Invision many compines have Invision in there name even before IPB/IPS so there is one more then so what. Also IF2 was orgional going to be based off of IPB2 if you look at the older topics when the PDRs were relesed before IPB went paid olny. So Brandon had to start from scrach then.

I wonder if he'd be able to strike some sort of deal with IPS where he could use IPB2.x. Way I see it, IPS would get somewhat free advertising (and some people, as proven already, would end up switching and buying a full license). Since he isn't giving out the source code either, and in a way (I think) only using 1 copy of the software, I'd think (or hope) that some sort of deal could be arranged.

Every day you see more people switching from IF to IPB, so I think it should stay: it's obviously a source of income for IPS.

As for IF 2.0, how many years has it been now? I remember when I was waiting for it... last year...

Yeah, doesn't he essentially use one DB and set of source files with multiple prefixes? Because the images all come from one source, as probably does the actual boards in their entirety except for posts.

I started on IF. It provides good opportunities for serious people like roleplayers that I've seen who start up free, close-knit, serious boards to dig into their hobbies and I admire Brian. But he's also smart, he doesn't get nothing out of it.. He's making a profit.

But I was always under the impression that by InvisionFree v2 that they weren't really coming out with a new version as that would be modifying IPB and redistributing it, but making a number of modifications, etc. and naming the new service version two. Wait, that.. I confuse myself. Sort of how like they added various features themselves for each board. Just modifying it further and upgrading graphics possibly.

Keeping the name is probably fine, as InvisionFree should be a unique one.

Yeah, I can't stand 1.3 now since I've been using 2.0 for over a year.

Looking at the ACP on IPB1.3 now looks horrible. I imagine the ACP for IPB2.0 will look just as ugly after getting used to the ACP for IPB2.1

The ACP though.. Gosh.. I remember when I first used it, I thought "wow, this is great". Now when I look at it, I think, "Hey I remember this, it has a few good things about being this way.. but gawd this all still looks like pure crap!"

Guess that's the sign of improving on ones own work, when you can look back at something and still admire/appreciate it overall, but be spoiled with how it is currently.

they take so many things out and its hard to skin, I never used them, I used clicdev, at least they let you upload stuff and have preinstalled mods

Exactly yeah.. no offence to the developers, but the default skin's images were also of far less quality than the ones that were developed by that one guy for the 2.0 skin. This darker appearance is also more professional.. These days I go blind looking at IF boards using the default skin.. I used to like it..

I think they were all done by James Mathias, all he does is graphics for everything/ maintains the ips sites.

Some one that thinks like me wolfie of all people
But I think that idea went down the drain.

I think he *used* to. As far as I know, he did the graphics for v2.0 and isn't anymore. But I could be wrong on that and might be the one to do the graphics for v3.0. Either way, it's no biggie.

I love the look of the 1.3 skin. The ACP isn't that bad, IMO. Of course, using tabs is preferable to frames.

I'm sorry, whats that you say? Myth? Well what's this ZetaBoards then.... Hmmm I think you have to bite your toungue good sir (/madam)! So don't cut off the dogs tail before it wags! (Woah I just invented a saying hehe)

I am a fan on IF because it's free and some people don't habe the money to have an IPB. (Yes I know IF sucks but who cares its free!)

When ZetaBoards comes out (full because beta is out) lets see who has the last laugh!

Zeta boards will revolutionize free forums!

MWA HAHAHAHAHAH! *evil laugh*

Anyways thats the only reason i signed up to this forum but I may as well have a look around!