Go to preferences and connect to host public.bearshare.net port 6436. This works, but if you find yourself entering your preferences a lot to re-enter it, see below for a more low-level approach.

or

Hex Edit your XoloX exe with your favorite hex editor and *overwrite* at address 000D45D5 (30h) with 33h. Note: this 'solution' may break your ability to send updates, and is prone to failing at any moment if public.bearshare.net changes ip's.

I have tested this myself, deleted my hostslist.txt and within 4 seconds went from 'connecting, 5 hosts to try' to over 200 then 'network ok'.