[Mastercarder]

I personally would redesign the theme to more of a modern CRM style. With a Panel on the left and top bar with user profile e.t.c with links and sections groups by side bar tabs. I would additionally add initiate scrolling of sections and also in addition of buying links for bytes i'd offer bytes bounty for people who need help solving problems.

I would do intensive semrush checks to see what area we could be covering and make sure people are awarded for posting in areas of interest in 2026. I would try to also add more technical sections with proper separation to bring other markets here from forums I cannot mention as it is against the rule but android customization forums & grey hat marketing forums.

Convo on desktop would be right panel popout so users not only sat in convo but used the forum at the same time. I here some people say groups are dying and I would have to disagree with that but also add that the creation of crews was a disaster to groups and I think noone should own more than 2 groups and if them groups are inactive the owner should be not be permitted to own a group and therefore the group would either get deleted or go up for sale.

I would encourage more tutorials and renovation of old threads to become relevant to today and not just left as good old relics and offer rewards for returning members and try to push referrals to the forum with incentives for referrals that upgraded or contributed in some shape or form. Individual & Group Prestige I would be pushing.

Thats just me. But first thing I would do is automate the daily boring tasks that take up the admin and staff work and make their life a little more easier.

Love this. A lot of great suggestions tbh.

[Edmond Dantes]

Definitely would encourage people to share more tutorials and tools as a lot of people come here to learn how to hack.

[The Joker]

It's the age of reels and short videos.

I would create a sub forum for video tutorials. Members can create and upload video tutorials about various topics.
I would incentivise such videos by providing higher Byte rewards. Would award Bytes for views and comments.
Add HF watermark to all uploaded videos so if anyone shares it out of the site, we get new traffic.

[Jamika]

add more rewards regarding activity

[Headspace]

I think if an open source, all-in-on utility of all the HackerTools was created, that would be something that could increase traffic - perhaps even an official browser extension.

[_V0X]

I suppose I’d look into what niches we are missing out on. This is a hacking forum, however people like me just come here to conversate.


Also I’d ban loadman for his own sake

[Mastercarder]

I suppose I’d look into what niches we are missing out on. This is a hacking forum, however people like me just come here to conversate.


Also I’d ban loadman for his own sake

Irish love to conversate 😅🤣

[G Reviews]

Looking at historical traffic data, I think 2 things need to be done: damage control and then a severe external marketing campaign. I hit on damage control because there is quite a bit of controversy online regarding this website if you look for it. And I think this negatively affects the website. No matter how long ago the shit happened, it's still out there and affecting user retention. Also, a number of supported outright illegal shit is supported here while other illegal shit is not supported. It is hard to trumpet an active community of various individuals and various activities if nothing is universal across the board. In this regard, I think you need to either go all in or all out. You can't be wishy-washy on this matter. Either you support the hacking topics 100% and all the tools and ill-gottens, or you don't.

I don't find it logical that certain illegal businesses and (hacked) account material is advertised and sold through the site here but a lot of other stuff is not permitted. Your driving 80% of enthusiasts away by using this strategy. I understand that the sale of malware might be a restricted topic here, but how logical is that compared to the bot seller that's selling compromised pc's in his botshop advertised on the website here? How do you think he obtained that botnet? And given the fact that AI now creates a huge majority of malware, I can't see how this would be a taboo topic any more. I just think the policies here are driving away a huge amount of people interested in hardcore topics and all the Russian forums are filled with thousands upon thousands of members, keeping in mind that not all enthusiasts are out to compromise others shit. Keep the ban on banking trojans and the likes, but open the doors a bit to some additional topics, even if they are just educational and don't necessarily warrant a marketplace action.

It might be interesting to actually see what people are developing in the underworld of malware. Not in the sense of marketing it or allowing onsite sales, but to see how advanced it is becoming. Maybe something like a "show your project" section could potentially bring active users to the site. People with real talent that would give HF the reputational push that it needs. Just a suggestion. Ok, my 2 cents are over now.

[CL1B]

Love this thread, hate the replies. All of these make me happy it's Jesse who runs this place.

If I became admin I would've remove a lot of forums and change a lot of forum names to their modern equal as the newer generation of hackers and cybersec does not use the old terminology.

I'd introduce new usergroups:

Writers - User group assigned to those that consistently write good, engaging threads. Rewarding them with increased char counts and embeds and perhaps so more handy things that help them write more engaging threads.

Coders - User group assigned to those that consistently write and share code to HF. Rewarding them with the ability to host repo's on HF and collaborate with each other as well as easily update their repo's so their users can update their code.

Reviewers - Idea from Charlie Sheen where a certain group of users who know their stuff go out and force vendors to give them a vouch copy, with added authority: Denying the request = ban

HackForumers - Patreon alternative but native to HF, new subforums in the VIP section where the HackForumer can post exclusive content not viewable for those he/she has not authorized to read that forum.

I'd also extend the convo socket adding emoji chat reactions, imgupload image uploads instead of b64, more embeds and extensive UX customization as seen in HF Convo Desktop App (censoring words, muting members, afk mode, etc).

The most amount of work I'd do is on user profiles, much greater user customization allowing for more self expression. Custom backgrounds, colors, layouts and more.

Quick loves would be replaced for a up and downvote system similar to reddit and be free of charge instead of costing bytes.

How would I increase traffic? Dedicate towards every niche inside the niche that is Hacking (HACKforums)

Being able to host repos on-site and possibly even releases makes a great place for a lot of things involving hacking, modding and tooling. If we can prime HF to be in position to become a alternative to unknowncheats, nexus mods, patreon etc. We will for sure see a huge uprise in engagement. Think about it;

Right now we do not have such a position so even if there's a new crazy exploit or something else that any one could grab from let's say github; HF does not gain extra traffic.

If there's a new game that has 0 hacks for it developed yet, HF does not see the uprise of those hacks. Other forums do.

If we would dedicate to those niches better, we will become a household name that hackers will go to in these cases (as well as they will go to the other forums, it's about the browsing experience and hoping to find info). I can't help but feel that 2026 would be the best time with GTA 6's release, it will be the biggest spike in forum traffic globally.

Last but not least, I would build a team dedicated to the core of the brand: Hack

Together we would implement HackTheBox style competitive games but also challenges, in the past 2 years these have been the most engaging on HackForums (HackHF and 7's crypto challenges). Proving the core is real. The ecosystem of this would need to deep into HF, with byte rewards, a revamp of the XP system (not like riggs said but similar) and most importantly: make it super engaging for those outside of HF e.g: Webview metadata embeds for sharing URLs similar to how Polymarket does the URL share embed where it says: I just won X with X

Making HF url embeds outside of HF very attractive.

All in all I don't believe any of this will ever hit HF due to Jesse's stance on collaborating and new tech (the man has GOOD reasons). And at first i thought that was sad but now I realize it's whatever man. Like Biggy or Biggs said: People come back for people. As of now, that's exactly what drives the community of HF (outside of the marketplace). Not the features or UX per say, the people.

[loadman]

Love this thread, hate the replies. All of these make me happy it's Jesse who runs this place.

If I became admin I would've remove a lot of forums and change a lot of forum names to their modern equal as the newer generation of hackers and cybersec does not use the old terminology.

I'd introduce new usergroups:

Writers - User group assigned to those that consistently write good, engaging threads. Rewarding them with increased char counts and embeds and perhaps so more handy things that help them write more engaging threads.

Coders - User group assigned to those that consistently write and share code to HF. Rewarding them with the ability to host repo's on HF and collaborate with each other as well as easily update their repo's so their users can update their code.

Reviewers - Idea from Charlie Sheen where a certain group of users who know their stuff go out and force vendors to give them a vouch copy, with added authority: Denying the request = ban

HackForumers - Patreon alternative but native to HF, new subforums in the VIP section where the HackForumer can post exclusive content not viewable for those he/she has not authorized to read that forum.

I'd also extend the convo socket adding emoji chat reactions, imgupload image uploads instead of b64, more embeds and extensive UX customization as seen in HF Convo Desktop App (censoring words, muting members, afk mode, etc).

The most amount of work I'd do is on user profiles, much greater user customization allowing for more self expression. Custom backgrounds, colors, layouts and more.

Quick loves would be replaced for a up and downvote system similar to reddit and be free of charge instead of costing bytes.

How would I increase traffic? Dedicate towards every niche inside the niche that is Hacking (HACKforums)

Being able to host repos on-site and possibly even releases makes a great place for a lot of things involving hacking, modding and tooling. If we can prime HF to be in position to become a alternative to unknowncheats, nexus mods, patreon etc. We will for sure see a huge uprise in engagement. Think about it;

Right now we do not have such a position so even if there's a new crazy exploit or something else that any one could grab from let's say github; HF does not gain extra traffic.

If there's a new game that has 0 hacks for it developed yet, HF does not see the uprise of those hacks. Other forums do.

If we would dedicate to those niches better, we will become a household name that hackers will go to in these cases (as well as they will go to the other forums, it's about the browsing experience and hoping to find info). I can't help but feel that 2026 would be the best time with GTA 6's release, it will be the biggest spike in forum traffic globally.

Last but not least, I would build a team dedicated to the core of the brand: Hack

Together we would implement HackTheBox style competitive games but also challenges, in the past 2 years these have been the most engaging on HackForums (HackHF and 7's crypto challenges). Proving the core is real. The ecosystem of this would need to deep into HF, with byte rewards, a revamp of the XP system (not like riggs said but similar) and most importantly: make it super engaging for those outside of HF e.g: Webview metadata embeds for sharing URLs similar to how Polymarket does the URL share embed where it says: I just won X with X

Making HF url embeds outside of HF very attractive.

All in all I don't believe any of this will ever hit HF due to Jesse's stance on collaborating and new tech (the man has GOOD reasons). And at first i thought that was sad but now I realize it's whatever man. Like Biggy or Biggs said: People come back for people. As of now, that's exactly what drives the community of HF (outside of the marketplace). Not the features or UX per say, the people.

goated

[Fkn]

HF is missing the unique content it had back in the days. Just think about how you ended up on this forum.

Nowadays tools are forbidden on this forum and AI is advanced enough to do the rest. Still HF has a special place in my heart but there's not much in it for me anymore and many others like me I guess.

[Mercury]

I'm probably reaching, but I'd be looking to get connected with big tech sites in an effort to secure advertising channels for the forum.

[_V0X]

Change this American theme to the Irish flag.


Up the republic 🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪

[Pow3r]

Things have changed a lot since I joined HF in 2008. It was a lot more tolerant of blackhat methods, tools and techniques and that came with legal issues. A cleaner HF makes for a safer place but also people coming here to find the now gone darker stuff now presumably head elsewhere.

I think HF is a great place to chill and learn and I wouldn’t want to see a drop in quality to simply “up the numbers”

[stark1337]

I would redo the forum to a Marketplace Forum.