An Internet Forum is a web site dedicated to holding discussions and the posting of user-generated content as well as the web application software used to provide the facility. Web-based forums date from sometime in 1995 where a user could start a "topic" and other users could reply via a form on a web page and have their response "posted" at the bottom of the starting topic.

Forums have now become very popular and can be used for free in some cases as well as the option to buy the forum. The difference here is that a free forum has advertising that cannot be turned off and certain elements of the forum may not be managed until a license is purchased. Such forums are hosted by the company offering the free software which regulates, and often disallows uploads and giving the user no FTP option.

If you have bought a forum, however, you will need a web host that is capable of allowing you to use the forum, which usually means it must support some form of server side language and a database, such as PHP or MySQL. You will then have to upload your forum to the host and set it up via FTP.

Once you have a forum you usually become the administrator in control of your forum, which means you have the ability to create forums, threads and posts as well as manage the style, functionality and users of your forum. There is an Admin Control Panel that has a list of all of the options you are able to change and modify to your personal taste.

The two major and most popular forum providers are the phpBB (and phpNUKE) and Invision Forums. phpBB stands for php Bulletin Board. Php is a server-side scripting language that controls the way the forum is run and interacts with the server database to store the users, posts and polls and change you make to the forum via the Admin control panel. Invision usually uses a mixture of php and MySQL, which both interact with the server database to the same means and ends as phpBB.

There are also a number of modifications and add-ons available for these forums, including skins, which are the way the forum looks and can either be created by the user or there are many available for download via the Admin. Mods are usually scripts that a user can add to a their forum to perform certain tasks, for example, to create a pop up window that displays the users currently online. These are mostly free and can be found at the official support forums for each board.