So the difference in finding files is because of the search limit restrictions, and TLLs restrictions, I guess. That would explain it.

I will have to test more, because limewire is supposed to be able to find more sources once a download is active, I guess by using the SHA1 key, or another more focussed method. But so far, I have never seen this happen. Instead, my downloads fail, because I could not find a single active source.

And meanwhile, gnutella is happily grinding away on files, with good download performance. All it takes is letting the search run long enough to find the sources, and allowing the search to propagate through enough hops to reach them.

Somehow, I don't think the ultrapeers are finding what I need for me. It may be a topology issue that can't be easily fixed, because it's in the hands of the ISPs. And believe me, my ISP is not going to change it's routing tables because I need fewer hops to reach the backbone. I do live in podunk, far from any large city, so any download seems to take a lot of hops before I find anything.

Maybe I will snoop some of the Kazaa packets, and do some traceroutes on the IP's I find. I could get an idea of my typical path for these types of files, which might be enlightening.

--R