Well at the time of writing this article, PHPBB version 3 is at Release Candidate 7. Testing this software was fun and a bit frustrating at the same time. One of the things I liked most about previous versions of PHPBB is it’s easy admin area. With version 3 the admin area seems a little less intuitive at times. I think the part that makes it confusing is the permission system is so elaborate. While I have always thought that more is better, it does take some time to make sense of the permissions and what needs to be changed.

Some of the more notable features I noticed in my quick test were:

• Mark users as friends or foes
• Enhanced attachments implementation and management
• Easier to add advertisements with the new theme system

Bottom line is that PHPBB3 is well worth a try if you’re looking to start a forum.

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