Over the weekend I completed a long overdue revision of the BeerSmith forum. I moved to a new forum software platform, which adds a ton of new features. I also secured the main BeerSmith web site, blog, forum and recipes site so they all redirect to our secure server now.
This resolved a series of ongoing denial of service attacks that affected the main BeerSmith.com web site late last week. As a result the main site, blog and forum should be much more responsive.
The New BeerSmith Discussion Forum
As part of the transition, I moved away from the old SMF forum software to a new, responsive suite of software based on XenForo. This gives the new forum a modern look as well as all of the features you would expect in a modern discussion forum.
The new features include:
- Enhanced Security – The new forum (and other sites) now run securely via https to protect your privacy.
- Expanded discussion boards – I added a large number of new boards to allow for discussion of important topics like ingredients, pro brewing, sour beers, and bottling and kegging.
- A Modern Look and Feel – The new forum has a clean, interactive feel and is mobile responsive so you can browse from your phone or tablet.
- New Q&A Boards – I set up distinctive Q&A boards for both general brewing and our software so you can post questions and answers and upvote the most popular answers. This feature also makes it easy to find related questions.
- Post Reactions – React to a post by clicking on the thumbs up button at the bottom of any post
- Improved Alerts – You can receive alerts for watched threads, member reactions and conversations. You can also receive alerts via email when someone replies to your posts, and all of it it customizable from your profile.
- Better Support – Because I can now monitor boards properly for new posts, I can provide better software support and help answer your questions more quickly
- Improved Private Messaging – Called “conversations” on the new forum, you can have detailed conversations with formatting, attachments and more
- Social Media Integration – You can email or share a post on any of the popular social media platforms with a single click
- An Improved Marketplace – Post items for sale or trade on the marketplace
- Post Enhancements – Full markup and formatting for new posts and you can easily add images or attach BeerSmith bsmx files such as recipes to your post
Note that your forum login is separate from any existing cloud login, but you can set up a free account easily by clicking on the register button or the registration page here. Please join the conversation by setting up your account at on the BeerSmith forum!
BeerSmith and BeerSmithRecipes Security Enhancements
Along with enhanced security of the forum, I also put in place secure https redirects on the main BeerSmith.com web site including the forum and blog as well as the BeerSmithRecipes.com site where BeerSmith Web and our recipe repository is. This will result in much better security and protection of your data when using the web based version of BeerSmith or our BeerSmith 3 software.
Currently, the older BeerSmith 2 desktop software is the only version accessing the recipe site using an insecure connection. I urge all BeerSmith 2 users to upgrade to the latest secure BeerSmith 3 version. By the end of 2022, I do plan to phase out the less secure cloud based access for BeerSmith2. BeerSmith 3 has always used a secure connection to access the cloud, and is recommended to protect your data and privacy.
Join the Conversation!
I look forward to seeing you on the new forum, even if you’ve not visited in a while or are a first time visitor. Note that your forum login is separate from your cloud login, but you can set up a free account by clicking the register button on the forum. Please post a quick note on the Introductions or other boards on the new forum and I’ll give you a thumbs up when I see it!
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