Can we use PHPBB2? If we start hosting are we allowed to use PHPBB2. I mean I know that if we are allowed to use PHP but Wil the file manger be that of Cpanels

I believe that there is a choice of BBS packages that you can install using Fantastico. IIRC, phpBB2 as well as SMF can be installed.

As regards your second question, I'm afraid I really can't follow what you're trying to ask...

Please be a little clear.

This post has been edited by sparx: Aug 2 2006, 07:08 AM

And yes, I will confirm. You are allowed to use anything that you can install and start

The first option is to install everything manually, which I strongly suggest, since that way you increase your web server experience.

On the other hand, if you are bothered by the speed of manual installs, you can use Fantastico, which is a part of the cPanel. There you have phpBB and SMF offered, and the installations are constantly being updated. By using Fantastico, everything will be automatically created, whereas you must create a MySQL database manually if you were to do everything by yourself.

However, I must warn you that it is far more secure that you use SMF than phpBB. Even though you can use the latest version, it is well-known that phpBB is one of the least secure Bulleting Board Systems, which can't be said for SMF.

I am currently using phpbb2 at astahost. I installed it using fantastico in cpanel. Just for fun, I also tried installing phpbb2 manually, from the distro freshly downloaded from the phpbb site. Of course, it's easier installing from fantastico.

PhpBB isn't particularly hard to install manually. In fact I'd recommend you do it because that way you'll know a bit more of it... And believe me, that knowledge will come handy when you encounter problems with the forums system or you attempt to install modifications.

Even more than manually installing phpBB, I'd recommend going with SMF or Invision. SMF is completely free (but not open source) and Invision can be used for free to certain limits (user count and posts). The problem with phpBB is that the core system is really old. Because of its age, it doesn't have the features people expect for a message board of today. For example it does not have built in attachment system and you cannot have child-boards or subcategories. Moreover phpBB has had and will continue to have a lot of security issues. It has been patched for countless of times but the security holes just keeps popping up. PhpBB3 might be a worthy system and being open source I'd be glad to support it. It just has been underdevelopment for so long that I have hard time believing they'll ever release a stable version.

Also, SMF is actually even more easy to install.