SMF vs vBulletin for spamming/hacking

[Maxine]

A client of mine is having tons of problems with spammers on their phpBB board. (We had some hacking problems too, but now we update/patch their forum software for them instead of relying on them to do it.)  We have implemented many anti-spammer features on the forum but still get tons of people with incomplete registrations showing up with profiles and rude names (as attempts to gain links for Google Page Rank purposes.)

Anyway, I am now looking at converting the client's phpBB to either SMF or vBulletin.

Can anyone tell me how good SMF is at preventing spammers (and specifically preventing the putting up of profiles, etc. without completing their registration - so they'd HAVE TO use a real email address and confirm it before their name or any of their info shows up on the board).  Also, how good is SMF at preventing hacks to the server?
Also... I know phpBB is so hacked/spammed due to sheer popularity. Do you think SMF will be better at prevention once they gain on phpBB in popularity?

If anyone has vBulletin experience too, please feel free to comment on how they fare as well.

Finally, two quick questions about features:
- which forum is best for Search Engine Friendliness
- my client's need to moderate the boards without having access to the full admin (don't want them to mess anything up )  but they will need to be able to fully moderate the users (ban, delete, etc.) as well as moderate the actual posts. Will SMF handle this type of mini-admin well?

Thanks in advance,
Maxine

[H]

Can anyone tell me how good SMF is at preventing spammers (and specifically preventing the putting up of profiles, etc. without completing their registration - so they'd HAVE TO use a real email address and confirm it before their name or any of their info shows up on the board).  Also, how good is SMF at preventing hacks to the server?
Also... I know phpBB is so hacked/spammed due to sheer popularity. Do you think SMF will be better at prevention once they gain on phpBB in popularity?

If you use 1.1 RC3 you have e-mail activation and CAPTCHA (note there are a few problems with the CAPTCHA which will be fixed in 1.1 final). SMF also has the package manager for mods and small updates. This means if a security exploit is found and allows spammers to join it can be patched with a few clicks.

- which forum is best for Search Engine Friendliness

Both SMF and vB work fine with search engines. SMF has SEO URLs mod and vB has vBSEO which are both meant to help SEO.

- my client's need to moderate the boards without having access to the full admin (don't want them to mess anything up)  but they will need to be able to fully moderate the users (ban, delete, etc.) as well as moderate the actual posts. Will SMF handle this type of mini-admin well?

SMF has a good permissions system which will allow you to grant certain permissions to moderators (or mini-admins) such as the ban permission.

Post moderation isn't yet in SMF however it will be available in the next major release.

[Alan S]

milw0rm.com is a leading exploit site...... search for smf on it and then for vB and you'll see what software has more exploits 

[Harzem]

SMF (optionallay) hides user profiles from unapproved members. This means, new members who didn't click on the activation link in their email inbox, can't access any email address.

There is no known security hole in latest patched SMF, even in the most experienced exploit sites.

SMF has enough popularity around hackers, because they couldn't hack it yet. Many hacker sites are using SMF as their secure forum software in their illegal sites.

SMF has SEO mod, but it is actually for 1.0.8 yet. 1.1 beta version will hopefully released soon.

SMF has a exhaustive permission system. I have a forum with exactly your mini-admin settings. If you want to get a test admin account, PM me.