Best way to get 3.7.2.1 forum back up and running?

[beavis1]

I have a small VB 3.7.2.1 forum running on my site. For many years, I have not allow new users to register, as the SPAM registrations were overwhelming. Instead, I just allowed users to read the pre-existing posts. However, now I wish to get my forum fully back up and running. My questions:

1) Is 3.7.2.1 secure if I choose to stay with it? If so, is there a way to stop SPAM registrations?
2) I understand a lot of people don't like VB4 or VB5 and are staying with VB 3.8 - can I still get a license for it? My license expired long ago.
3) I don't want to spend a lot of time upgrading. I just want to have a forum that is as close to 3.7.2.1 as possible that is secure and has better SPAM registration blocking. What would you do?

[CarpCharacin]

If i were you i would upgrade to vb 3.8.8 or vb 4.2.2. Could you post a link to your site so we could see what upgrade is the best? There are more anti spam plugins for vb 3.8 and vb 4.2 than vb 3.7.

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by beavis1

I have a small VB 3.7.2.1 forum running on my site. For many years, I have not allow new users to register, as the SPAM registrations were overwhelming. Instead, I just allowed users to read the pre-existing posts. However, now I wish to get my forum fully back up and running. My questions:

1) Is 3.7.2.1 secure if I choose to stay with it? If so, is there a way to stop SPAM registrations?
2) I understand a lot of people don't like VB4 or VB5 and are staying with VB 3.8 - can I still get a license for it? My license expired long ago.
3) I don't want to spend a lot of time upgrading. I just want to have a forum that is as close to 3.7.2.1 as possible that is secure and has better SPAM registration blocking. What would you do?

1) Either run 3.8 (the most current version just not a Beta version on a live site etc) OR 4.2.2 (4.2.3 is out just still in Beta so skip for now can upgrade later). *You can run 5.x IF and I mean if you're not going to customize it heavily and you're fine with running a vanilla forum. Now with that said don't take my comments the wrong way, 5.x is fine if you want a basic forum, it's improving too but the 3.x and 4.x versions were out and had a full plugin system including hooks for them so the mods and whats available to use customization-wise is out of the park, tons of stuff but then not so much for 5.x sadly just how the cookie crumbled I'm afraid so take your time to decide on which version to go with before blindly upgrading!

For Spam use one or more of the mods listed here to fight against it - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=276547 and please note that some sites are different... some will use the same mods as other sites yet still receive spam registrations - there's a number of factors involved and scripts possibly being used but point being as of time of this post, there is nothing that will stop spam 100%, I've seen many make statements about this and for some sites yes it will "seemingly" stop 100% but like I said your site is not theirs nor mine and each site is different so with that being said take your time, install some basic ones and keep an eye on spam for a week after that, you will notice anything odd and can then make changes to adjust and hopefully stop it 99%, like I said there is no 100% stopping it despite what others say, its a per-site basis.

2) You can only purchase a vBulletin 5 license currently HOWEVER you can run 3.x or 4.x under that same 5.x license - you can't run a 3.x, 4.x, and a 5.x though that would violate the license agreement rules. You can though clone your current 3.7 site into a /testvb/ folder and then upgrade it to 3.8, 4.2, or the most current 5.x version to ensure it will in fact upgrade properly - that is the only time running two instances under the same license is allowed and even then perquisites exist such as .htaccess protection on the /testvb/ folder respectively.

3) Hmm ok then how to say this... due to how vB5 is being actively developed and improved, if you want to avoid upgrading I'd go with 3.8 or 4.2 as per my comment above 4.2.3 is in Beta so basically 4.2.3 will go official soon and 3.8 is pretty much near end of life, more than its ever been so maybe another patch or two will come out but my point is going with a longer standing version that is not being actively developed will cut down on time spent upgrading. I say this because of the recent announcement where older versions of 5.x are deprecated and not being patched and you must in fact upgrade now if running 5.x so now you see my point there - the down side to this is you're not on the most current version HOWEVER if you patch when required in 3.x and 4.x you will not spend as much time updating as you would if running 5.x.

So to sum it up:
- Run the latest version of 3.x or 4.x under your 5.x license but you can only go to a 5.x license.
- If you do upgrade to 5.x, more time will be required to keep it up-to-date versus 3.x and 4.x. In my honest opinion 4.x would be best for now, 3.8 is fine and quite a few larger forums still run on 3.8 by the way.
- No matter the version, you still may end up spending time every so often on maintenance which should be expected with any software, can't always avoid the geek work you know .

[beavis1]

Superman,

Thanks for your detailed and helpful reply. I will probably go with 3.8 for now.