I have noticed that the network is getting worse and worse lately.
It takes longer to get connected, and usually a few hours before you
find some stable hosts. I have been trying everything to get the best
hosts, but its very hard to tell, since XoloX doesnt show who you are
connected to. I've been monitoring how xolox connects to hosts, and it
appears that it only connects to a few hosts at a time (less than five
on average). Now this would be alright if these five hoss were really
good, but most of the time they arent.

I Found a list of active hosts, which was very helpful, at http://gnufrog.com
and it sometimes helps to add a few of them in the preference window. Still
this was a long process, because usually you only connect to one out of the
ten that you put in. Then i was looking around and found my savior.........

<b>gnucache.......</b> its a program that connects to the gnutella network,
creates a list of active hosts, and then acts as a host cache server.
I'm still not quite sure how it works, because when i look at what ports the
program is listening to, they arent the ports that its setup to listen to. Its
originaly set to listen to 6346, 8080, 6667, 80 and 23, but my firewall shows
that it is listening on 0.0.0.0 ports 3904, 5, 6, and 3907. I'm not to keen on
TCP ports, so i'm not sure what its doing. What I do know is that IT WORKS!!!!!!

I spent three hours searching for files to download, and during that time i tried
everything i could think of, even going back to Limewire (Which still sucks, !@#@ing
supernodes!!!). Then I found Gnucache, and started it up, found about 500 hosts in 20 mins,
and started finding my files left and right. It really works.

This is DEFINATLY not something for novice users, but if you know what your doing,
i'd say give this a try. You can download the program from:
<b>
http://www.gnutelliums.com/download/gnucache.shtml
</b>
Just unzip it, run the program, And i think you have to change the 6346 port to something else,
since (atleast i think) Xolox runs on that port. Start Xolox, let it connect to a couple of hosts,
Then go to gnucache and enter in your own ip number (its the best way to connect to the Gnutella network)
It should connect, then start finding hosts like crazy! Since you are connected to the network
through xolox, it greatly increases the amount of hosts you can see.

Hope this helps someone, cuz it sure helped me

If anyone finds this helpfull, or understands it more than i do, i'd like to hear from you

Gbrayut