User:Nonviolence/iPBFree/

iPBFree is a free internet forum host running on the famed Invision Power Board 1.3 software. It was originally started in 2004, although the early details of iPBFree are few and the original owner(s) are now unknown.

The current owner of iPBFree is Jean Barker who has added a variety of features and made iPBFree one of the fastest growing forum hosts in existence, as shown on Alexa. Unique to the service are a fully featured Blog system that all staff post on regularly, including upcoming events, features, and scheduled downtimes, as well as an official resource forum for general resources.

History
iPBFree has seen many changes in ownership, uptime/downtime, and official forums among other things. In 2004, iPBFree was first created, and sold for the first time. When it was originally sold, there was an existing partnership with the InvisionFree forum IF Skin Zone, which provided resources, including skins, graphics, and mods to the service free of charge.

Upon its first sale, the service was no longer upgraded, security holes were left unpatched, no new features were added or planned, and the support forums quickly became filled with users wondering what had happened and why their forums were being cracked and why the service was down too much. It was during this time that the forums support admin, Alan, became administrator on InvisionPlus. Once it was made clear that iPBFree was making no progress and wasn't going to, Alan started forwarding users to InvisionPlus, making it as big as it is today.

In 2006, the forum was again sold in May or June, the owner himself unsure, and handed over a few months later. In November, iPBFree version 2.0 came out and increased the security, features, stability, and added new servers for added uptime and the modifications that were added. The first members of staff on the new iPBFree forums were reece296, also from InvisionPlus, Alan, Intimidator (also known as Andrew), and catfriedrice. iPBFree quickly went from the one-hundred twenty thousand rankings on Alexa to the fifty-thousands after just a month of progress, from there it eventually broke the top ten thousand.

The current version of iPBFree is 2.1 which "beefed up" security, added new modifications, changed some Admin CP links, and had a few largely unnoticed cosmetic changes.

The Future
Aside from the offerings of a Blog, General Resource (though called a Mod forum), and Support forums, iPBFree plans to expand to offering an as-of-yet unreleased "community project" that promises to expand the user to user experience as well as offer a platform on which to expand the ability to offer support, and teach users how to do new things, such as make graphics, and skin.

iPBFree 2.2 is now in development stage, and is expected to be released in mid-late July, although the official release date is to be disclosed. 2.2 focuses mostly on better organization of the Admin CP, a full-on cosmetic upgrade, and more features. It has been suggested that WYSIWYG is in, but this is unconfirmed as of late.

The project is now defunct.

Statistics

 * At least ten thousand hosted forums, but some have suggested this number to be forty to fity-thousand or more.
 * There are three main servers, two of which run the service, and the third being for the support forums, modification forums, and blog in case of downtime.
 * The Support forums and Modification forums combined have over two thousand members and thirty thousand posts.

Official Links

 * iPBFree Home
 * iPBFree Support Forums
 * iPBFree Modification Forums
 * iPBFree Blog