BearShare users are definitely not easy to browse. The later the version, the more chance you have. But it also depends on many other factors such as whether you & they have free upload & downld slots & bandwidth & whether you can get a decent connection with them without interference in between. There's prolly other factors. I always keep my chat enabled, as that at least makes it easier for people to browse me. Whether it has any effect the other way around I don't know.

I have browsed bs before but it took a long time happening. I think my 1st time was about a year ago.