As we near the point of releasing a phpbb3 based free forums system, I thought I'd share my views so far.

I started out feeling very negative about phpbb3 as my experience was that the permissions system is horribly complex. I'm sorry to say I have not changed my view on that much at all I think users are going to struggle on this one.

But on a more positive note, I think phpbb3 is going to be the clear platform of choice for people who demand fancy features from forum, essentially it has more of the key foundations to such features built into the box.

Notably.

1) User profile fields

2) sub forums

3) attachments

4) improved private message coding interface.

5) improved database structure.

These are quite key foundation stones , some of which we have added to phpbb2, but only as additions.

The other main objection to phpbb3 was that on a feature comparison we wiped the floor with phpbb3, with our portals like the cash mod, quiz mod, shop mod, web pages and loads of other additions we were and are ahead of the game.

The last two weeks have been largely about preparing a phpbb3 release with the key extras, and now this is done I am quite looking forward to releasing phpbb3.