If you're trying to browse host & it's saying 'unable to browse host', that does not mean the person's a freeloader. Browse host is pretty unreliable Having chat enabled seems to make it work a little better.
There's some info here
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...ht=browse+host

For your searching, try using the All Types category, rather than just Audio or Video. This can give you quite different results. For example if you're searching for a movie, search for title - format eg movie - avi or just movie avi

When your search results come up, you can check the file with Bitzi. Right click on the file > advanced > look up file with Bitzi. If a movie's been rated, you can find out whether it's a good/crappy version & other little bits of info. Songs don't tend to be rated very often.

Don't forget to search at different times of day. Hosts in other time zones are logging on/off all the time

You're right, this has been asked before! The search button is top right, next to quick links. It lets you search through all previous threads.