Recently a lot of scrutiny on the quality of MyBB as forum software has come around in recent months. Historically, despite its ugly theme and its lack for certain features, MyBB has had a number of advantages that has made it the software of choice for quite some time for me and for a number of others that I have worked with. In the past, some of its most significant advantages have included its ability to easily modify all theme attributes straight from the ACP, its great plugin system, robust forum features, its simplicity, etc. However, I wonder if it really has much of a future in light of a number of trends, both for MyBB, and for forums in general. 

Yes, it's still great forum software, and in a lot of ways, it still stands high on its crown. However, if you compare MyBB with phpBB 3.1, there are now some important differences. Yes, MyBB is still ahead in terms of its features, but it's based on old technology, and quite frankly, I simply cannot see MyBB 2.0 going anywhere anytime soon at this point. Yes, it's still in planning, but software development takes years, and the team has been disorganized ever since 1.8 was announced over  two years ago. Without more talented developers on the team and/or more organization, MyBB 2.0 will also likely be outdated the day it is released. To compare a few important differences between a newly revived player on the forum scene and MyBB's most recent release...

• PhpBB 3.1 has a responsive default theme. MyBB has virtually no customized support for mobile devices. The archive mode is as close as it gets. Yes, other forum softwares also land in the same boat, but MyBB may become behind fast once other softwares catch up over the next couple of years. 
  
• PhpBB 3.1 has features for notifications, eliminating the need for header and PM notifications all over the place. As much as some notifications annoy me, this is an essential feature for modern forums these days that integrate forum capabilities that require a variety of notifications. 
  
• PhpBB 3.1 has broken a longstanding trend of depending on old technology and has established a system for incremental improvements over costly rewrites. MyBB is still running on old steam at this point. (Don't get me wrong. 1.8 is a good release in terms of polishing what's done, but I feel that's all it really is. They haven't really done anything ground shaking with it, to be honest. More than anything, it just means fewer plugins will need to be installed on a fresh forum because some of these essential features are now included in core. )
  
• PhpBB 3.1 is now based on modern coding standards and makes use of symfony components, which will significantly help its development long-term. I find this impressive considering they did not do a from scratch rewrite to achieve many of their deep improvements to the code base.
  
• While MyBB's plugin/theme system is most certainly much simpler to use, phpBB has made significant steps in improving many aspects of their backend code that includes features that MyBB cannot offer, such as template level hooks. 
  

• 1.8 has had quite a few security issues since its release. Not speaking well of the software at this point. Yes, every software has vulnerabilities, but the most recent github attack and the total of five vulnerabilities (three of which were serious) are a little worrying as someone who uses MyBB, and we were really pretty lucky that none of these vulnerabilities have yet affected us. (To be fair, they have taken steps to prevent this from occurring again, but it's still worrying. MyBB has not generally had a record for security issues in the past. ) 
  
• 1.8 was outdated the day it was released and simply feels like it is running on old steam. Their plans for 2.0 are good, but it's been in planning for years and development has not begun
  
• While the situation (for the first time) seems to have radically improved for MyBB themes, many talented plugin developers seem to have either gone towards developing premium plugins, or have left the community. Some may disagree, but compared to the plugin developers for other competing softwares, I feel MyBB is really a bit behind in a lot of ways.
  

Since several members here are well acquainted with the software that this forum runs on, I feel it's only fair to have an official discussion thread on the topic (if people who feel other software is superior want to create their own, feel free xD)

For those of you who have MyBB forums or who are members of forums running MyBB, the MyBB development team released 1.8.2 yesterday that fixes several vulnerabilities, including three serious vulnerabilities that can be exploited on the software's front end. Needless to say, both this forum and chatcave have been updated.  According to the announcement, MyBB 1.6.15 was not affected by these vulnerabilities.

Everyone seemed surprised when an extremely low risk XSS vulnerability was fixed in phpBB 3.1, and it seems MyBB 1.8 has had quite a few security issues so far going back from its beta days. Hopefully there won't be too many more vulnerabilities that will need to be patched. 

Ask me something?

http://securityintelligence.com/ibm-x-fo...GS1eHW99TA

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30019976

A patch for this was apparently released on tuesday. I'm sure there are other undiscovered security flaws in windows that have yet to be discovered, and I'm afraid to find out. Luckily, as a non-IE user, I don't believe I would have really been at risk (back when I was a windows user, at least), but this is still pretty bad for quite a lot of PC users. 

Not sure what all of these Windows XP people are going to do if Microsoft doesn't release a patch for them as well. 

I know there's a link to it but there's no button to click to get there without pasting the link every time.

What is the latest book you have been reading? It doesn't matter if it takes you one day or three months. If you're like me, you rarely catch a moment and it takes forever to get through more than two chapters.

Personally, I've lately been slowly re-reading Machievelli's The Prince. It's not the most amazing work ever, but I find it interesting for the purposes of knowing European history at the time of its writing. 

I work at a place where you never know how long your shift will be. Some would say it's a bad thing, but on busy days, the money that is made is all worth it. That said, I have worked a couple of 14 hour shifts, and I can't say they have been the most pleasant ever.

What is the longest shift you have ever worked? 

Hi, I'm VRVisions but I usually go by Alex, my other username being Suzaku. I am a huge anime and gaming fan, but I usually love virtual reality and simulation games. I have a site I run called VRVisions, a resource site for virtual reality, simulation and other creative games. I know Darth-Apple from Simmania (a SimCity fansite) so I figured I'd come back here. My favorite anime types are action and sci-fi, my favorites being Bleach, Kill La Kill, Full Metal Alchemist, Code Geass, and many more that if I'd list, we'd be here all day.

Thanks for reading and I hope to post more.

So, for our first poll, should the team names of "the moderns" and "the ancients" be renamed to the conservatives and the liberals? 

The following requirements must be met for this change to take effect 

• A minimum of four votes
  
• The final percentage must be 75% in favor
  
• Results will not be processed until November 20th at earliest. 
  

I routinely drive through heavy traffic more often than I should. I can't say I've ever loved it, but I've certainly grown more used to it. If I had to sum up the single two most annoying traffic behaviors that I have observed as a driver myself, they would be as follows: 

• People texting and driving (I don't know how many rear-end accidents I've seen as a result of this).
  
• Tailgating. I don't care if you're going 10 MPH below the speed limit. I won't tailgate you, period. I particularly don't like when the tailgating driver behind me immediately changes lanes as soon as I turn on my turn signal to prevent me from changing lanes, then flies in front of me 15 MPH above the speed limit without the usage of the turn signal. That sort of behavior is guaranteed to get me to hold the horn for a good long three seconds.