Forum software change - yay or nay?

[Jon]

@Gasman, done as requested. May I ask what made you change your mind?

This forum had 10 exploits. But most were duplicates so it was really 3. I have now removed them. They were from 9 years ago, according to the file date.

Some were redirects, so someone goes to a page and gets redirected to a porn site or something. The other looked like a password grabber, possibly.

An vBulletin forum that I paused, but using a newer version, has 24 exploits. Gotta work on that now! It doesn't matter so much there because it is really archived.

 

[Jon]

I forgot to add, the attacks seem to have gone up massively recently, or at least I think they have. But I cannot pinpoint if it was before or after migration of hosts.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I was unaware such malware detection software was available for linux servers

Though there is significant lag time, the fact that a server can be attacked means that one of the security companies will see a market for protection software.

Here is an armchair prediction for you: All those Apple products that claim to not need security will be breached and there will be an Apple-based security package. The reason: The aggressive marketing of Apple products will attract hackers looking for less protected phones. A few major hacks will come out and suddenly there will be a bigger market for protection software in that arena. And the good news is that despite the machines sometimes being different, and despite the O/S being different, there are enough conceptual similarities of function that the other O/S A/V packages can be translated to the new environment with a relatively small level of effort.

 

[Jon]

Doc, I have a theory: everything eventually reaches an equilibrium. Get a lot of push one direction, it will trend to an equal and opposite force in the other direction. Or in your example, little protection on Apple computers leads to more attempts at hacking, until that equilibrium is reached.

 

[isladogs]

Newton's third law of motion.
For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction.

 

[Jon]

Just filtered my email by the database errors. Over 9000 errors in the last week, due to the sql injection attacks. Essentially, each error is one attempt at a hack.

 

[Dreamweaver]

I see Invision is mentioned. That appears to be the software that forum I mentioned is using.?

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/

I used there system when when it first came out and never had any problems Might look at moving my site to them if I can afford to pay for a site.

 

[Minty]

Minty, are you saying that you can just copy and paste an image with Xenforo?

Sorry, very late with my reply but been awol (absent with out laptop? ) for nearly 24 hours.

Yes! That's my impression from MrExcel's blog/articles.

I actually joined as I've been creating some complex spreadsheet reports direct from Access, so I was brushing up on my Excel skills (which are definitely average!)

 

[Jon]

Hey MickJav, I lived in Broadstairs for a short while, real close to you. Lots of parrots there, which is unusual for England!

 

[Dreamweaver]

Hey MickJav, I lived in Broadstairs for a short while, real close to you. Lots of parrots there, which is unusual for England!

Thats broadstairs for you full of old people who can't stop talking, it attracts the parrots lol

I feel for you Jon I remember what A Headache it was when I was running my site back in the early 2000's, Hope you get it al sorted soon.

I'm not sure how to vote as been out of the game for a long time I think I'll stick with my free forum lol

 

[Jon]

Thanks MickJav. You don't have to vote at all.

 

[Deleted member 147267]

Here's a question for you Jon. If you convert and something goes south, can you not revert?

 

[Jon]

I have considered that. I do not know what the impact would be, but it is possible. Google are a law unto themselves. For example, what happens if everything is fine for a month and then traffic goes south. Was it the forum change? Something else? Difficult questions with no clear answers.

 

[Minty]

Google are a law unto themselves.

Google - can't we hack them if they balls it up?

It's not like we are rubbish at this stuff, is it?

 

[Jon]

Hah, I see Xenforo even has a theme for this version of vBulletin!

https://xenforo.com/community/attachments/3_discussionlist-png.52968/

 

[Jon]

Here is an index page: https://xenforo.com/community/attachments/1_forums_guest-png.52966/

 

[Minty]

That has a warm and fuzzy "similar" feel, I like it.

 

[Jon]

Just found out that Xenforo allows different themes, which are user selectable! So, I could install a vBulletin theme, like in the links I gave. Or you could choose the default Xenforo theme, for those who like a more modern look. Or even a Dark Mode theme. So each user here could have a choice. Hmmm, very appealing.

Example dark mode: https://xenforo.com/community/attac...responsive-forum-style-forum-list-jpg.216210/

 

[isladogs]

Perfect. You could change over to Xenforo and some of us wouldn't even realise

 

[Lightwave]

I can see why you are nervous Jon - I m not a massive fan of mobile for this kind of thing as I very rarely access it that way. Also there is quite a bit of loss of detail on the stats of the individual users on the left hand side. Might be configurable - don't know but you don't get an instant feel of the quality of the answers from the individuals especially as a new user.

How many times someone has been thanked seems to correlate well with their competence plus where they come from gives a bit of context. I find the opening screen kind of narrow as well. On my desktop xenForo's own forum only uses about half the screen which seems a tremendous waste.

The categorisation of Well-know member seems somewhat bland.

Oh I just see there is a way of instantly seeing stats by hovering over name

Much better that goes some way to countering my concerns.

As a database person my natural bias is towards rich dense information

https://www.phpbb.com/community/