TOTAL Confusion 3, 4 or 5

[oldengine]

I've been a vBulletin owner/admin since 2004.

My current vBulletin stats are Threads: 127,940, Posts: 1,043,499, Members: 74,689

I am running: vBulletin 3.8.7 Patch Level 3

Now that vBulletin has fractured into three different followings, 3, 4 and 5, what the hell do I do? Has anyone made sense of this random senseless drift in a marketing scheme? I have purchased ALL upgrades to vBulletin so that's not the problem. Which one is working at the top shelf quality that used to be vBulletin? Where do I go from here? My long term philosophy has been, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

[Max Taxable]

There's NO compelling reason to "upgrade" to v4 or v5. No one's ever been able to supply one.

If you and your members are happy with 3.8.x, don't change.

30,000+ v4 installations were hacked recently.

Many of your add-ons and Mods, and plugins will not be compatible with version 5.

I think you'll rue the day you ever "upgrade" and they will have to pry MY 3.8 out of my cold, dead hands.

[fanyap]

Originally Posted by Max Taxable

There's NO compelling reason to "upgrade" to v4 or v5. No one's ever been able to supply one.

How about this...

The table and blocky design for vBulletin 3 SUCKS!!! The flexibility with CSS and mobile related feautres / social media on vB4 are far superior than vB3.

Common sense in my opinion, upgrade to vBulletin 4 and you're good to go for a few years.

About the recently hacked vB4 sites, do you know how many vB3 sites have been hacked over the years? lol.

Upgrade to vB4 and customize it nicely, you'll thank me later. Don't just do the typical crappy stylevar edits a bunch of people do around here, spend some time and do something really nice for your community. Good luck either way!

[joeychgo]

Agreed

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by fanyap

How about this...

The table and blocky design for vBulletin 3 SUCKS!!! The flexibility with CSS and mobile related feautres / social media on vB4 are far superior than vB3.

Common sense in my opinion, upgrade to vBulletin 4 and you're good to go for a few years.

About the recently hacked vB4 sites, do you know how many vB3 sites have been hacked over the years? lol.

Upgrade to vB4 and customize it nicely, you'll thank me later. Don't just do the typical crappy stylevar edits a bunch of people do around here, spend some time and do something really nice for your community. Good luck either way!

Your answer is simply, "it looks better."

That's hardly compelling. It's just a opinion. MY opinion is, vB4 looks like crap. It's the wimpy "web 2.0" crap. Old school PHP baby, that's what rocks.

See?

vB 3.8 NEVER had the security issues we're seeing with v4. Not even close.

[ShawneyJ]

all kidding aside, i cant see why vbulletin cannot add a shlt load of new features to 3.8. vb3.8 clearly is the best boards out of 3, 4 and 5. vb3 ruled the net back in the days. even looking at big-boards, those massive ass boards out there are all still running vb3.

you cant tell me vbulletin cant turn vb3 into something more awesome. ive changed to IP.Boards and clearly they are the rulers of the net today. but in the back of my mind, im always thinking while using IP.Boards, vbulletin can add most features to vb3 similar to IP.Boards.

oldengine, im pretty sure 70% of vb3 users have been in your boat, what to do, where to go, i feel lost...all because some big head thought they could make vbulletin better, or try and make money, god knows what goes on in that place and in ther minds.

i must say, it was really hard for me to leave vbulletin. for vbulletin 3 freaks like me, its like giving up smoking or drinking or some shlt. but i took the leap to IP.Boards because they rule with their convertors, like holly crap. you can make it look like vbulletin and give it the feel vb3 has but with all the extras. the extras vbulletin can still add to vb3 and most likely get half their customers back. after vb4 was released, IP.Boards was flooded with new members converting. it died down there for a little bit, but then vb5 was released, look out Invisionpower, you have more customers!

dont some vbulletin stuff go to bed at night and think, "holly crap, what have we done to vbulletin". vb3 awesome, vb4 SMF clone but worse...umm...vb5, its like if vb5 was actually a piece of software that you could hold in your hand, im thinking someone through it under a train and uploaded it to the net.

if you ask me, vb3 most likely could get hacked at anytime, depends on if the hackers feel like attacking your site, vb4 the same. vb5 could turn into something in like 10 years if they still exist.

no offense against those that put all the time and effort into creating vb3 and the support was good. really going to miss the old days with vb3. the last email i got vb3 was not even mentioned, so im guessing its all over for what was once the best boards ever.

ah, good the see vb.org still running vb3, once it upgrades, im out of here.

oldengine, good luck with the choice you make, either stay with vb3 or move

[BirdOPrey5]

Opinions... everyone has them. Hard facts are vBulletin (3 and 4 combined) still dominate forum market-share and XenForo has already surpassed IPB, but remains a distant second to VB.

[Paul M]

Unless you have a specific reason to upgrade, then stick with 3.8.7 (or 3.8.8).

You can move to vb 4.2.2 if you *really* want the fun of an upgrade.

[TheLastSuperman]

I concur ^

Here's my thoughts:

I recently ran into a woman running a fully patched 3.8 site, she had spent money and members even donated to have quite a few (fabulous mind you I simply adored them honestly) styles made for the forum, for all the different seasons too! It was a treat to login and see . She said that, she contacted a few coders etc and one even went so far as to tell her that they could not work on her site unless she upgraded to 4.x which I found too cute simply put.

^ That is not the case at all, her forum was just fine as I told her and upgrading including the custom styles would cost well more then she intended to spend, if it ain't broke don't fix it as the saying goes, why spend more money? Not everyone has a huge budget for their forum while others do, some are simple hobby sites some major sites related to a business or other. Now does this mean 4.x is better? No in fact I think 3.x and 4.x are very comparable, 5.x is just not up to par (personal opinion and where's the cms and other features, lack of modifications on here to boot as well but again as I've said before in other posts it's getting better over time, I can clearly see that).

What I'm trying to convey is this:

• If you have a nice 3.x site, it's 3.8.x fully patched and it works fine then no need to upgrade to 4 or 5. If you have a nice 4.x site, it's fully updated and patched no need to upgrade to 5.
• If you're new to vBulletin then I personally recommend starting with 4.x, either 4.2.1 or 4.2.2 (requires php 5.4) and you can always upgrade to 5.x at a later time when it improves just like many did with going from 3.x to 4.x long ago. I say this because 4.x has been in a good spot for quite a while, many mods on here for it and also easy enough to find solutions online considering the amount of support given to date.

If you have doubts, check out vbulletin.com it is running 5.x, see if you like how the site looks and feels but remember styles can be changed/added make sure it feels right is what I would do while browsing/interacting with the site.

Just my 2 cents, if you don't want to keep my pennies find a wishing well and be sure it's a good wish before you toss them in .

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by ShawneyJ

if you ask me, vb3 most likely could get hacked at anytime, depends on if the hackers feel like attacking your site, vb4 the same.

"Likely could get hacked" is relative - it's true of any platform. But v3 is inherently more secure than v4. v4 isn't getting "hacked" because it's prevalent out there, it's happening because it's relatively easy to do. Because of all the exploits it has, and ones it has that haven't been found yet. Most of what you see happening to v4 isn't much more than script kiddie stuff, done more for "street cred" than anything else. These script kiddies wouldn't waste any time at all with v3 because it would require too much work on their part. And they know it.

But if a true, hard core black hat HACKER really wanted to, there's little question that he could "hack" a v3 installation. But your true, hard core black hat hacker has way too many other bigger fish to fry than a message board installation.

If you have a nice 3.x site, it's 3.8.x fully patched and it works fine then no need to upgrade to 4 or 5.

^^ I have been saying this incessantly as well. There is no compelling reason to go to 4 or 5.

And besides - if your members like your platform why do you want to upset them?