1999
ProBoards' pioneering young founder, Patrick Clinger, began developing the original ProBoards free forum software from the quiet confines of his home, coding furiously into the wee hours of many a long night.
2000
A legend is born. January 1, 2000 was the official launch date of ProBoards Free Forum Hosting. On January 20, 2000, the very first ProBoards Support Forum was put into action fielding support requests from numerous early message board enthusiasts.
2001
ProBoards acquired licensing from message board software developer YaBB (Yet Another Bulletin Board) thus converting ProBoards from a "nested" forum structure to a "flat" forum configuration (aka "modern" forum design).
2002
In the pursuit of excellence, Patrick took it upon himself to re-write the forum software from the ground up. Mid-year 2002, after several hectic months of work, ProBoards v2 is released to the public, bringing with it vastly improved processing speeds and functionality.
2003
February 2003 marked the registration of the 1 millionth ProBoards free forum account created. Ever the perfectionist, Patrick took it upon himself to revamp ProBoards' v2 message board software resulting in the creation and deployment of ProBoards v3. V3 offered vast improvements to processing speed as well as the addition of 30 entirely new forum features for members to enjoy.
2004
In early 2004, ProBoards continued to see phenomenal growth and reached the milestone of being responsible for the secure hosting of over 500,000 active message boards. Later that year, the number of hosted free forums skyrocketed to over 1 million.
2005
ProBoards continued to improve on its forum hosting software with the mid-year release of v4, bringing a host of new features to an appreciative community of forum owners. With over 100 enhancements, ProBoards v4 represented a quantum advance in the functionality of free message boards and spurred additional, phenomenal growth in forum account creation.
2008
ProBoards released the next big advance in free forum hosting: ProBoards v4.5. Codenamed Blue Dragon, v4.5 enhancements were primarily to the "back-end". Improvements to performance, functionality, and ease-of-use were readily apparent to ProBoards members.
2009
While v4.5 brought much needed technological improvement, bigger things were in the works. Development on the ProBoards v5 forum software began, promising to revolutionize the online forum through the integration of AJAX, Web 2.0 technology, and the functionality of a traditional message board.
2010
In January 2010, ProBoards joined the local Orange County business community with the opening of an office in beautiful Lake Forest, California.
2012
The ProBoards team kept growing, and development on v5 accelerated. V5 went through its alpha and beta stages, culminating in the BetaZone process in November as hype surrounding the launch grew.
2013
On April 29th, v5 was officially released to the public. Development continues on v5 to ensure that it delivers the highest quality forum experience on the Internet. The launch of v5 shows that ProBoards is still going strong and getting better every day. Serving over 700 MILLION page loads a month, ProBoards has grown to monumental proportions boasting membership from every corner of the planet.