Adding a forum

The most preferred method of installing a forum is to use a some sort of prepared forum creator script which is installed and run on your server. Providing that you know how to upload files to your server and rename files, you should be able to set up one of these forums. If you don't know how to do this, don't worry! Go on to the next section in this article, "Hosted Forums"

There are many commercial and freeware forum creators which can help you in this quest. I’ll list some of the top ones below:


vBulletin This is a commercial forum program. If your host supports php/mySQL, vBulletin is a great choice . 
An example of what a Vbulletin forum looks like is @ http://forum.freeadvice.com/ . Vbulletin is very efficient, can be very attractive and its robust. You can download this forum creator at http://www.vbulletin.com/download.php and installation instructions @ http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/ At the time of writing, the cost is: US$160 for a single license.
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phpBB This is the forum creator I currently use, its simple to set up, and once your host supports php/mySQL/msacess, you can set it up easily. You can download it at http://www.phpbb.com/downloads.php and Instructions on how to install it are at http://www.phpbb.com/support/guide/ Most importantly, it’s FREE.
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IkonBoard A great forum system with numerous features. It has e tensive template and skins features to it's complete multi-lingual support,. Has over 1 million active boards operating across the web . More about this option is available @ http://win.ikonboard.com/

Snitz More about its features and downloads are at http://forum.snitz.com/specs.asp Great choice is you are an Internet developer and prefer ASP forums to PHP forums(for the layman, those are two different Internet programming languages)
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If you are not a techie, all hope is not lost!, there are other forum creators however, where you do not need to install anything on your website server, you just need to sign up with them, set up an account and they create and host the server for you! All you have to do is link to the server they are hosting for you!.

Some of the top ones are listed below; all are FREE:

EZBoard
EZboard free forum service is extremely popular and offers unlimited number of forums, total customization of interface, search options, etc. Check out www.ezboards.com for more information!

Delphi Forums  
Delphi offers free forums with full access control, realtime chat, a stylish interface, and more. For more information, check out.www.delphiforums.com for more information! 

Freeboards
Offers free and paid discussion board hosting. The free version is ad-supported. Check out www.freeboards.net for more information!

I hope that this article gives you a start on owning your own forum! A forum can add so much interactivity to a website and create return visitors if promoted correctly.