Download Simple Machines Forum 2.1 RC2

Simple Machines Forum is open source forum software. The developers are working hard on the next milestone, version 2.1, and have released the second release candidate. The package requires at least version 5.4.0 of php and as a database at least MySQL 4.0.18 (although 4.1.0 is recommended) or PostgreSQL 8.0. Support for SQLite has been dropped. Below is a summary of the major improvements made in this release:

SMF 2.1 RC2 Released:
Simple Machines is pleased to announce the release of SMF 2.1 RC2. This second release candidate includes a number of bug fixes and improvements to security, stability, and performance. Notable improvements since RC1 include:

• A fix for a bug that prevented background tasks, including sending notifications and alerts, from completing.
• Improvements to the theme templates.
• Database query improvements and optimizations.
• Improvements to the upgrader, including more graceful recovery if corrupted data is encountered.
• Efficiency improvements to the image proxy.
• Security improvements for PHP 5.x.
• 4-byte Unicode characters are handled correctly even on databases that do not support them.
• SMF’s Like button will not be hidden by ad blockers.
• The obsolete Yahoo Messenger profile field has been dropped.
• The default list of holidays now extends until 2030.
• Sizes of uploaded files are calculated correctly.
• Implements permissions system for BBCodes. (Mostly useful for custom BBCodes.)
• Some bugs in the editor have been fixed.
• Ampersands no longer break the post preview function.
• Desktop alert counter always reports the correct number.

You can read about these and many other improvements in the list of changes on GitHub.