A review of Dolphin 7

First let me say that the software has evolved and become better is some aspects but I believe the cons still out weigh the pros.

First the features have grown but almost make the site too complex for many users to find their way around. The inability to provide dynamic meta tags for each page was a biggie for me. If we have to purchase the capability then we shouldn't have to purchase the platform to remove BoonEx links.

Another biggie for me is the inability to stop spammers or scripts from inundating the site with bogus content. This again should not be something a person should have to purchase.

The chat feature is nice but causes some extreme resource usage on the server. Unusable in a true production environment.

Store feature is also unusable in a production environment.

And my last but greatest concern is the site is very insecure. If people want to know what I'm talking about then you must waste just as much time as I did evaluating it. You will find that eventually your site will be prone to hacker attacks. The use of short_open_tags and readfile is extremely insecure and needs to be modified.

I do like where Boonex is heading but I believe there is still work to be done to make this a true social networking platform to be used by true professionals. This thread was not meant to offend anyone so please hold your comments until you look into the issues I spoke of.

I have other smaller issues that basically just deal with smaller module capabilities and features. Those I believe will iron themselves out in the long run.

As far as the fees to remove Boonex links, I believe this is ridiculous others have tried this for years and I'm sure you're feeling their pain. If your provide the source code within an open source licensing structure that incorporates developers modules, contributions and modifications in a true ecosystem that will not conflict with other modules allow them to secure and profit from their work, you may see more developers that are willing to invest time.

yep, yep, yep and yep:

i posted what was wrong with dolphin once before, and Andrew Boone told me that was the way it has been, and that is the way it was going to continue to be.

so in addressing what you have stated here, i think you are correct, dolphin has way too many modules, and only about 30% or so, would ever actually be used.

blogs

news

articles

forums

groups

all repetitive.

AV chat outdated and antiquated, this has been addressed and ignored.

resource intensive, you will be notified that you need to pay $200 for a server audit

the issue of xml.php or whatever that crazy file was, has seemed to have calmed down. yet installing RMS requires minimum VPS, with minimum 2GB RAM.

overall, yes dolphin has come a long way, and the way you have to accept this, is that this is not a catch-all social networking environment, but you have to realize that this is a good foundation, a jump off point, a starter point to build on this as you see fit.

as for paying to remove the adverts - well not sure how they would be able to afford to continue development if this were all 100% free.

the source is free, if you dont mind the adware.

to develop what they have currently you would spend in excess of $300K just to start would be my best guess. so for $100.00, you get what they have spent years on, and what this community has spent years on debugging.

so yeah, it has issues, but you will not find anything available that is equivalent to this price tag of $100.00?

I think where a lot of people go wrong with Dolphin, is how they use it, and what they think they are getting into!

It would be very easy to purchase an 'out the box' SN script that is very tight, secure and neatly packaged. There are lots of them out there. 

Or, you can use an open source script, pay a lot less for the basic package, then jog it around (often with paid mods) to get what you want from it.

Ive looked at a number of other scripts, much cleaner out the box, plug n play type of thing.

They do some thing well, but do not allow me to make the changes to get my site looking the way I actually want it to. Its all generic looking stuff...

Dolphin  however, as DosDawg says, is a great platform to get a jump start... 

It takes stripping back some mods, adding some custom ones, streamlining the site so that users are channeled into the mods that you WANT them to use to make the site perform right.

For me, all the mods provided are basic. They do the basic only, but can each be 'upgraded' on market.

Choosing the right mods for your site, its market and vision is key, then upgrade them as you want.

Get it right, and you have a site that does what you WANT it to do and what you NEED it to do!

I like it, taken me 2+ years to get my site the way it needs to be (still tweaks to do) but it now does the job right. the other scripts I tried didnt allow me to do this...

I just took a look at our sites search engine position after 1 week and it's dropped completely down to page 5!!! I'm done with this software!

 has nothing to do with the software. that is directly related to the individual who failed due diligence in conforming to 301's when changing applications. 

this is directly related to your responsibilities in informing the search bots that you have implemented changes

Yes unfortunately I also see security point of dolphin as a crucial failure for use it as professional platforn and dolphin seo ability is also terrible. Honestly Im quite surprised that there are not yer some powerfull SEO and SECURITY mods from 3rd party developers.

Also shop module should not be there in dolphin at all as its completely not functional so i dont see any point why its there. Also Im surprised its not any 3rdparty shop developed yet.

Other drawbacks I see is notnative admin levels (which have been recently partially solved by 3rd party mod) but hopefully we see this in D8. And as last big drawback I see inability to set timezone as for people having servers in different timezones than site customers render use of  such functions as events unusable as times and dates will be not usable and also it makes chaoss all across the site regarding all times and dates used on site . ALso hope this will be solved  in D8.

But how far we are from D8 ..few months , yerar, two years ? ...who knows....

Anyway I agree with Dos that there is not any real alternative to dolphin 7 now. ALl other scripts I tried are terrible or wre web based so cant be suctomised to unique look and features so dolphijn is still quite good choice for start base. Only Jomsocial comes very close at with conjunction with joomla 1.7 makes it a big step ahead in social platforms. I using now jomsocial for 6 sites with quite success...

Look on the bright side, it will take the spammers longer to find you :-) 

Seriously, don't feel bad the same thing happened to me when I upgraded from version 6.0.4 to 7.0.7... It's slowly climbing back up but Google hates Dolphin sites so mine weren't that high to begin with.

Thanks for the detailed review 

uggg ?!

this is 2014 ... This thread is from 2011

Whoops sorry about that missed the date

It's ok, not a lot has changed since then.... Most of those problems still exist