LimeWire has released the beta version of LimeWire 1.9c, available at:

http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/download_beta

This beta is almost identical to the 1.9b beta (probably the most short-lived beta in LimeWire history!) with several important fixes for non-Windows systems. As with 1.9b beta, this is primarily a maintenance release, although the improvements over the LimeWire 1.9 beta are crucial, particularly in terms of performance. The changes include:

<ul>
<li>Significant performance improvements, both in terms of CPU and memory.
<li>Prevents spurious disconnects from UltraPeers after conducting searches that return a lot of results.
<li>Ads in non-Windows versions! Seriously, they are there. Don't worry too much, though -- we did the ads ourselves, so they're a bit less annoying than the Windows ones. If you click on the Amazon link to do late Christmas shopping, a portion of the proceeds goes to support LimeWire and the open source project.
<li>Minor bug fixes with swarm downloading.
<li>Improved logic for grouping similar results for swarm downloading and smart downloading.
<li>Improved UltraPeer election process, so you will not get elected as an UltraPeer if you are a modem user.
</ul>

As many of you have noticed, we are having problems with the Linux installers. We are still unable to identify the precise system configurations that will cause the error, but if the beta installer gives you problems, try just using the tgz file available at: http://www9.limewire.com/beta/1.9c/l...eWireLinux.tgz. This file will also work on most other Unix and Unix-like OSes.

The most important change for the beta is really in performance. You should see significant performance improvements, especially as an UltraPeer, over the previous version.

As with the short-lived 1.9b beta, thanks very much for everyone's feedback on 1.9. Your assistance has been invaluable, and we have fixed many bugs in this version that we likely would not have found without the help of all you forum readers out there!