Invision Power Board

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Invision Power Board

A default installation of IPB 2.1.x
Developer: Invision Power Services
Latest release: 2.2.0 / December 6, 2006
Platform: PHP / MySQL
Use: Forum software
License: Proprietary
Website: www.invisionpower.com

Invision Power Board (abbreviated IPB or IP.Board) is an Internet forum software produced by Invision Power Services, Inc. Written in PHP and primarily using MySQL (other database engines are available), it is comparable to other forum software.

While Invision Power Board is a commercially sold product, there is a large modding community and many of these modifications are free. In addition, many groups offer the download or design of free and paid skins.

Contents

[edit] Latest Releases

[edit] History

Invision Power Services (IPS) was begun by Matt Mecham and Charles Warner in 2002, after the pair left Jarvis Entertainment Group (who produced Ikonboard). Their first product was IPB, another forum package, which quickly gathered a community of former Ikonboard users.

Although the software developers originally maintained that it would remain a free package, in 2004 IPB ended its free releases for non-commercial uses. A downloadable trial version of Invision Power Board 2.0.0 PF[1] versions 1 and 2 were made available, but were discontinued on September 27, 2004. It was replaced with a free demo with restrictions of 5000 posts, 1000 threads, 200 members and other restrictions, thus ending its claims that IPB will be free forever. On July 1, 2005, IPS changed the demo timeframe from 15 days to 5 days, and a few months later, it was again reduced to 24 hours.

IPB 2.1 was released on September 13, 2005. The administrator's control panel was completely redesigned, and the posting options were renovated to feature viewable text properties (Rich Text Editor), such as bold, italics, underline, etc. The viewing styles were also redone, and a number of various other changes were made including the use of Ajax in many new features.

[edit] Version 1.3

Version 1.3 was the last free of charge version, and IPS still permits it to be used, but does not offer a download or support. This is the only version of IPB free IPB hosting companies can use (the ipb2.x+ license does not allow hosting multiple boards by using the same license).

Regardless of the lack of help, many users still use the older version, even though it has known security holes. Up until 2005, IPS offered security fixes, but with the advent of version 2.1, these have ceased. The website IBForen offers unoffical security patches for the 1.3.1 version, as well as a compatibility fix for PHP5, however use of these fixes are not supported by IPS as the version is discontinued.

[edit] Version 2.0 and 2.1

When version 2.0 went final, Invision Power Board became a paid product. Just as with IPB 1.3, some users still using the unrestricted trial versions of the 2.0 PF[1] versions but again, contain a lot of security holes and are no longer supported. However, no modifications exist which make IPB 2.0 secure, and users were encouraged to upgrade to version 2.1, which also included a redesigned Administration Control Panel.

[edit] Version 2.2

Invision Power Board 2.2 is the latest version of IPB, and includes many improvements, new features, and security fixes. It was the first version to undergo a security audit by a company named Gulftech to find any security holes missed by the IPS development team as part of their ongoing effort to keep IPB as secure as possible. All versions of IPB 2.1 are commercial software, no downloadable demo version is available.

[edit] See also

  • Free Invision Power Board hosts - companies which offer free Invision Power Board hosting.
  • Ikonboard - forum software originally created by Matt Mecham.
  • Invision Power Services - company which produces Invision Power Board.
  • IpbWiki - integration of IPB with MediaWiki.

[edit] External links

Official

Other

  • Invisionize - A large unofficial resource site for IPB and other IPS products

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Pre-Final, aka a Release Candidate made available for use before the final code is released for public consumption.
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