I have been an advocate and user of xolox since the early days and I consistently find it to be the best gnutella client suited to my needs. The only thing that lets xolox down is the distracting and ugly advertisment banners.

How difficult would it be to offer a sort of "donor" system from PayPal or Amazon that lets users donate a set fee (say $3-$5) that gives them a lifetime "advert unlock code". So basically a user can "donate" a small, one off fee in return for an advert free version of xolox. Users who don't feel like donating can get an exact same copy of xolox but with advert banners?

And before you say "yeah but then everyone will swap a few keys" - just implement a key server and make the xolox client check with the key server before performing a search. If the key is invalid or widely used by many different IP's - just block it and return the client to advert mode.

Just a thought (here's hoping!)...

gpuk