Ah good times. These forum software were so easy to available and ubiquitous to a point that everyone and their dog had their own forum.

Customizable signatures, BBcode, user flairs, reputation systems, register to download, etc all were pretty fun.

The privacy was superior too. Almost nobody used their real names, and the profile pictures were crafted animated gifs.

Sure they got hacked once in a while, and admins were often left paying for the servers out if their pockets or dumb banner ads.

Facebook groups took everything away, and the ads were replaced with creepy personalized ones.