Extreme Message Board Review

(November 8, 2006 23:58)
Last Version 1.9.11 (February 28, 2009). Released under GPL License.
Resources Website Extreme Message Board Website Download Download...
Company XMB Software.
Price Free.
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What is Extreme Message Board:

Extreme Message Board, also known as XMB provides a powerful forum software, quite complete, with themes, modifications, and support of a good community. Since the last time we reviewed XMB, this software got more and more features, and finally reaches a step where every major requirements for a forum software are present and really easy to use.

Review Updates:

  • February 15, 2011: A major update of XMB (5 years later!).
  • August 11, 2006: First Review of XMB.

Extreme Message Board is recommended for Medium Community.

(and supports smaller communities perfectly as well.)

Server & Client Requirements

Server Requirements
Programming Language
Required Architecture and Versions.
  • PHP 4
Web Servers
How the forum is delivered to users.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
Databases
How Forum Data are Stored.
  • MySQL
Operating Systems
Systems Supporting this Software.
  • GNU/LinuxGNU/Linux
  • BSD UnixBSD Unix
  • Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows
  • Apple Mac OSApple Mac OS
Browser & Client Requirements
Compatible Browsers
List of Compatible Browsers.
Mozilla FirefoxMozilla FirefoxInternet ExplorerInternet Explorer
Google ChromeGoogle ChromeOperaOpera
Apple SafariApple SafariKonquerorKonqueror
Mozilla SeaMonkeyMozilla SeaMonkey
Required Plugins/Technologies
Additional or Basic Requirements from Client Side.
HTML, Javascript, CSS.
Localization
Languages supported by Extreme Message Board.
Yes.
Supported Languages:
Czech German
Estonian Spanish
French Croatian
Italian Dutch
Norwegian Polish
Portuguese Serbian
Russian Arabic
Ukrainian

The International Section of the official XMB forum is a good place to find translations.

XMB - Threads

Since the 1.6 release of Extreme Message Board, this software had the reputation of a resource hog. This is no longer the case today, and the trend seems to be the opposite now, because XMB can easily support an high traffic.

You will find more information about XMB at:

Compatibility with Smartphones
Compatible SmartPhones
Compatible Cellphone Brands and Manufacturers.
No.
Application Distribution / Type
How it is distributed / App Store Availability
No.

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads / Topics
Forum Style Flat Forum Organization
  • Forum Categories
  • Sub Sections
Thread Icons Yes Topic Tags No
Hot Topics Yes Unread Topics Yes
Hidden Topics No Sticky Threads Yes
Related Threads No Detect Duplicate Threads No
Announcements Yes
Posting Messages / Answers
Message Editing Form
How to Post Messages.
  • Rich Text Editor
  • Preview Button
Post Editing Format
Supported Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • Plain
  • BBCode
Spell Checker
Checks typos on posts and topics.
Yes
Image Attachment
How Images can be Attached and Displayed in Message Posts.
  • Upload via Classic Attachments. Images are all at the end of the post.
  • Use BBCode or HTML. Need to type the URL of an already hosted image.
Embedded Videos
Videos and Media Websites Supported in Message Posts.
No.
Posting Features
Quick Reply Box Yes Smileys Yes
Attachments Yes Syntax Highlighting No
Message Rating
No Message Quoting Yes

XMB - New Topic

Creating a new topic of poll is extremely simple, as XMB name suggests it. Features are quite complete, with a spell checker (you need to install aspell command first), a preview function and many way to customize your posts: smileys, thread icons, BBcodes, attachments,...

Additional & Technical Features

Additional Forum Features
Poll Creation Yes
Private Messages
Users Can Communicate using an Internal Messaging System.
Yes
Instant Messaging
Discuss with Visitors and Members in a Chat Window.
No
Calendar
Topic, Member Birthdays, Events are available from the perspective of a calendar.
No
Online Users List
Connected User List (Often Found in the Forum Footer).
Yes
Members List
Search and Consult the List of Members.
Yes
Technical Features
Bundled Software
Additional Software Available with the Forum.
No.
RSS/Atom Syndication
Posts and Threads Exported to Feeds Aggregators Syndicate.
No.
Friendly URLs
URLs are clear and contain information about the topic (title, message,...). Highly recommended for SEO purposes.
No
Post by Email
Post Directly From your Email Box.
No
Remote Control
Remote Control from External Software/Websites.
No.
Cache System
Cache pages to optimize bandwidth and load times.
No
Template Engine
It is easier to theme a forum using a known template engine (more docs & examples,...).
No.

XMB - Search

This forum supports the features you will see in main forum software, nothing less, nothing more.

User Profiles & Options

Some details about Extreme Message Board features regarding members.
Member Options & Features
Bookmark Threads
User Profiles Keep a List of Followed Posts and Topics.
Yes
Email Notifications
Receive Emails When New Messages are Posted in Followed Threads.
Yes
Export private messages
Private Messages can be Downloaded by Users.
No
Payment Subscriptions
Paying Membership Subscription.
No
User Profiles
User Profile
User Information and Settings.
Yes
Avatars
Pictures of Members, Useful to Easily Identify their Posts.
Yes
Signature
Signatures Added at the Bottom of Each Message.
Yes
Ranks
Tags and Labels Identifying the Members, based on specific criteria (Total Posts Count, Credits, Moderation Level...)
Yes
XMB - User Profile
XMB - U2U Inbox
XMB - Edit Profile

Members will have power features in order to organize private discussions with each others, with the U2U module, than regroups an Address Book, a Private Messaging System, a Buddy list and so on.

Moderation & Users Management

Moderation & Threads Management
Moderation
Post-Moderation The moderation is done afterwards, if an administrator notices a problem or if a member reports something wrong. Each message is therefore directly published.
Reactive Moderation By reporting any problems, members are reactive against moderation problems. Moderators' main objective is to regularly check user reports, without having to follow each threads.
Distributed Moderation By organizing the forum around moderators, who are usually power and experienced users, moderation is self-powered and only depends on the community.
Moderator per section Yes
Global Moderator Yes
Move Threads
Move Threads from Topics
Yes
Shadow Topics
When a thread is moved, the previous position is kept in order to inform users of this modification.
Yes
Close/Lock Threads
Close/Lock Problematic Threads
Yes
Users Management
User Groups
Organize and define groups of users, and apply different actions and settings on them.
Common Groups: Guests, Members, Moderators, Administrators,...
No
User Registration
  • Free Registration
  • Registration needs Approval
  • Confirmation sent by email for validation
Limit Features For New Users
Features are limited if a user has created a small number of posts.
No
Guest Posting Yes
Multiple Administrators Yes
Send Warnings to Users
Inform users by email or PM that they infringe the board rules, and could be excluded for such behavior.
No
Forum/Section Restricted Access
ACL could be use to determine if a user or a group of users can access (in read only, post message) to some sections and topics.
Yes
User Banishment Yes

XMB Administration - Restriction Manager

Administrate moderators, IP Banning and a restriction managers are some nice features XMB includes.

Administration & Support

Database Management
Backup Database
Backup forum datas that you could store somewhere else.
No
Prune Database
Remove old and unused datas from your forum.
Yes
Restore Database
Restore a backup of your database if the previous install crashed.
No
Administration Tools
Statistics
Statistics about posts count, users, traffic...
Yes Error/Notice Log Viewer
Forum Logs could be consulted.
Yes
Tasks Scheduler
Maintenance tasks are regularly launched and could be scheduled.
No Mass Mailing
Send an email (newsletters, advertisements, information,...) to all users.
Yes
Installation & Upgrading
Installation Method
How this forum software could be installed.
Installation Wizard
Upgrading Method
How this forum software could be upgraded.
Upgrade Wizard
Updates Notifications
The Admin Panel informs you when a new version is released.
Yes
Forum Migration
Convert an existing forum to Extreme Message Board.
No.

XMB Administration - Dashboard

5 years ago, when we installed for the first time XMB, we experienced several problems that did not reappear this time, hence the general quality of the software seems to have increased a lot.

Security & Spam Protection

Security & Spam Protection
CAPTCHA
Captcha protects your forum against spam bots.
e.g., Syndicate
Yes
Complexity: [++[ Hard
Abnormal Behavior Detection
Detect users or request strange behaviors, and try to process proactive actions.
-
Words Filtering
Offensing Words are automatically replaced.
Yes
User Blacklist
Prevent specific user accounts to register (based on email address, name,...) and disable potentially harmful members.
Yes
IP Blocking
Prevent access to spam robots and other scripts that could attempt DDOS or Brute Force attacks on your forum.
Yes

XMB Administration - Forum Settings

CAPTCHA are easily configurable, with a dedicated interface where you can setup and increase the difficulty of generated images. By the way, a censor list is able to replace rude words by whatever you want, either by replace letters in the middle by a star, or by applying a specific format on them.

Vulnerabilities Advisories Criticality

Secunia Criticality

Secunia Advisories severity affecting Extreme Message Board.

Vulnerabilities Impact

Secunia Impact

Secunia Advisories impact affecting Extreme Message Board.

Customization & Social Networks

Customization
Plugins
Add new features to your forum installation.
No.
Themes
Modify the style of your forum easily.
Yes.
~116 Available Themes.
Custom BBCodes No Smiley Packs Yes
Custom
Thread Icons
Yes Additional User Profile Fields
Ask more about your members with custom fields.
No
Integration with Applications, Social Networks, Intranet...
Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
No.
CMS / Blog Bridges
Integration with existing Web publishing tools.
No.
User Accounts Integration
Do users be able to log in with their corporate, Google, Facebook,... accounts?
No.
Content Aggregation
Forum allows to integrate news and content from other website, using an aggregation protocol (RSS, RDF, Atom,...).
No.

W3C Norms & Accessibility

Norms & Accessibility
HTML / XHTML Markup
XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Click to see if it respects HTML norms.
CSS Stylesheets
CSS 2.
CSS 2
Click to see if it respects CSS norms.
Accessibility (WAI)
Web Accessibility ensures that the forum is usable by people of all abilities and disabilities.
Conformance to A level.
A
UTF-8 Support
Default encoding used to support all locales and countries.
No
Conformance to W3C Norms
Does Extreme Message Board correctly follow (X)HTML and CSS norms?
Yes.

XMB is unfortunately still using the ISO-8859-1 encoding, which is okay for most European/US languages, but could be problematic if you want to support cyrillic, chinese or arabic languages for example. The default theme is however compliant to W3 norms, which is great!

Unique Features

Key points and major differences that make Extreme Message Board unique:

  • XMB Software provides money and developer to be sure that XMB is bug free and always improved.
  • XMB Forum provides a dedicated U2U application to let forum users communicate.

Final Words


Good.

Extreme Message Board is good forum, but some users accustomed to vBulletin or IP.Board might be a little bit disappointed by this forum, which is good for standard communities, but can be limited if you have to manage thousand of users (think about the lack of user groups for instance).

For people really concerned about optimizations, XMB Documentation contains nice tips about how to tune and improve performance of your MySQL server.

Additional Resources:

Found a Mistake? Tell us »
Post a Comment

Comments (9)

in the site they say the last

in the site they say the last relese is 1.9.11 and no updates
how come ?

Best Regards
Sadaoui "SAFAD" Abderrahim - Lead Developer AEF Group

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lastnico's picture

Indeed, there's no plan for a

Indeed, there's no plan for a new release for the time being. It looks a bit odd as the project is still active and the official forum regularly commented

FSR Admin - Vote for 2012.

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where to find this 5years

where to find this 5years patch thing ?

Best Regards
Sadaoui "SAFAD" Abderrahim - Lead Developer AEF Group

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Hello there! Do you know if

Hello there! Do you know if they make any plugins to help
with SEO? I'm trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I'm not seeing very good
success. If you know of any please share. Thank you!

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There are a lot of mods

There are a lot of mods (plugins) out there for xmb that allows admins to add a calender, send warnings to users, back up databases, additional profile fields, and a shoutbox etc so I think this review on xmb was a bit rushed.

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It is really easy find forum

It is really easy find forum alternatives to costly software. Doves Forum, MyBB, Simple Machines, phpBB, XMB, punBB, Phorum, AEF, and bbPress are just a few of the many open source scripts that you may look at for a cost-free solution, but pay attention to the RSS structure that they provide.

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XMB I think has kicked the

XMB I think has kicked the bucket, their site only consist of the support forum, which if you really look at, it has been taken over by spammers.

They talk about a version 2.0 release, but I do not think that is going to happen seeing as it was last mentioned in march.

there are lots of great light boards out there, XMB is a sinking ship that looks like it got left behind.

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hitechito's picture

There are many mods (plugins)

There are many mods (plugins) from the XMB, which allows administrators to add calendar, send notifications to users back to the database, profiles of additional fields and shouts, etc. So I think it comment is XMB was a bit hasty. PHP Web Developer India

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Can extreme message board be

Can extreme message board be used on mobile templates of normal websites. i want to try it for my site which is basically meant for Indian users. www.price4india.co.in/

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