On November 14, 1999, Christian Knerr, owner of CBACK, started a hobby project at the age of 13: an online computer guide called "CBACK.de" (at that time: Computer Beratung Christian Knerr). He also published programs and tools he had developed himself there free of charge, such as a control interface for older DOS computers called "CC2".
The magazine ComputerBILD published a test report on CBACK.de in issue 14/2003 and awarded the project a grade of 2.7. This report and other awards, for example from computer.de, helped the website to become better known. The feedback collected was used to continuously improve and expand the site.
The first major restructuring of CBACK.de took place. The acronym was changed to "Computing & Business Applications Christian Knerr". In addition, an open source forum software called "Orion" was released, a fork of phpBB, which quickly became very popular. A dedicated forum, the CBACK Community, was set up based on this software. Christian Knerr also developed the security system "CrackerTracker", which continues to protect numerous forums and scripts on the web from worm attacks even many years after it was discontinued. Christian Knerr has received several awards for this and other scripts and modifications.
Following a request from the publisher DATA BECKER, Christian Knerr wrote the comprehensive book "Internet Intern: phpBB2" together with four other authors. He mainly wrote the chapters on code security and module development in order to impart his knowledge of PHP programming and how to effectively secure forum systems.
On December 1, 2006, CBACK became a business. Christian Knerr intended to offer paid web and media services in the future. His previous hobby developed into a profession alongside his studies. The original guidebook character of the website gradually disappeared and CBACK became a web agency.
In 2008, CBACK became a registered trademark at the German Patent and Trademark Office to give our professional products and services additional legal security. Behind the scenes, we were already developing our own forum software in parallel: the CBACK Forum, or CF for short.
The CBACK project was completely revamped with the release of the first version of our own forum software CF3 and became a full-time job. The then and now outdated tips & tricks were completely removed, and the website concentrated from then on only on our own offers, as well as documentation on self-developed software. The range of services offered grew.
After intensive development, we introduced a new platform for our community software in 2017: The CF4. The system has been completely redeveloped and specially tailored to security and performance. A very simple plugin system and versatile customizability quickly made the forum system very popular. Later, when the GDPR was introduced, it became clear that this was the right approach: CF4 is directly compliant with the newly introduced data protection guidelines, thanks in part to features such as the HTTPS wizard. Many forums based on other systems eventually switched to the CBACK Forum platform.
Thanks to a photovoltaic system and an energy storage system, our electricity requirements have been covered by renewable resources since 2020. Surplus energy is fed into the public power grid.
To expand our range of services, we positioned ourselves more broadly in the field of media production. In addition to providing jingles for podcasts and music for events through our partner project "syntaction", we also offer additional services in the areas of video editing, image processing and supporting post-production.
CBACK modernized its brand design and carried out a major website relaunch. The media services division is now presented in more detail on the website and the sale of software licenses has been made much more user-friendly.
CBACK has steadily developed into an established company specializing primarily in the areas of multimedia, web design, search engine optimization and PHP programming. Our range of products and services is aimed equally at private individuals, associations, businesses and companies. Thanks to our established network of freelancers, we can also individually expand and flexibly adapt our range of services in order to always be able to offer you optimal and cost-efficient solutions of the highest quality from a single source.