Vbulletin 5 Questions

[HonestAustin]

Dear Vbulletin,

I used to be a Customer long ago (roughly 7 years ago) So, I am not most up-to date or par with Vbulletins current status in the Market.

I have recently came up with a idea for a webite that I want to build(or try too) and I am currently browisng forum software to base it off of. and I have pretty much nailed it down to either Vbulletin or Invision Power. However, I have a couple questions regarding Vbulletin.

1: Is there a Discount for Past Vbulletin Owners with a 7 year old expired License?

2: Vbulletin 4 has a CMS,Blogs,Gallery(if I remember correctly), Mobile Suite. does Vbulletin 5 Connect have this?

3: How easy would it be using Vbulletin 5 or 4(whatever is easier and cost effective) to build a fully functional site based off the forum software? (meaning Home,About,News Articles, etc..)

4: Payment gateways. Vbulletin 5 or 4 Support any recurring payments or stores?

5: I know this is unrelated. But, is there a site for vbulletin where you can get a custom modification made & or theme?

6: Back when I was running Vbulletin 2 it was D-Day with hackers,spammers and security issuess. How has this changed today?

My last question is.. what would be better to build on for security. I rather not update as often and I am thinking of VB 4 because of this. as I do not want to keep on paying someone to keep on updating my mods every time a new update comes out?

Thank you!

[TLMD]

1.) As far as I know there is no discount available other than the upgrade discount that is mentioned on the purchase page. You have to log in to see if it applys for you.

2.) vB5 has Blogs and Groups, but no CMS yet. A CMS is planned for a future release.

3.) It is not very hard to set up a vanilla vB. Have a look at the manual for more information about this.

4.) Don't know, sorry.

5.) Have a look at vbulletin.org for addons. Since no other recommendations are allowed on this site, you have to google for people/companies doing custom work on vB.

6.) Don't know either, sorry.

[Wayne Luke]

4. You can do recurring paid subscriptions with Paypal.

6. vBulletin 2 wasn't particularly any more or less insecure for applications of its time. Over the years though we have added additional layers of security and spam protection as has been warranted.

[BirdOPrey5]

vBulletin 5 is still new and there will be a number of updates to it before it has all the features announced. vBulletin 4 on the other hand is mostly stable with few changes planned other than updates for PHP 5.4 support and newer IE browsers.

If you don't want to upgrade versions every 6 to 8 weeks I would go with vBulletin 4.x.

The vast majority of security concerns come from 3rd party modifications- www.vbulletin.org has literally thousands of free modifications for VB 4.x but they are made by community members and no formal security testing- so if you use any be sure you regularly check for new versions.