It took a bit of work to get Bearshare working on my Windows 8 setup, but thankfully I did get it working. I just always found Bearshare to give the best results on searches, but I know there are newer programs out there. Should I be looking at some of these newer programs or is Bearshare still about the best. I'd just like some feedback from users who use Bearshare and some of the other programs to chime in and give me an idea if I should be trying these other programs.

Thanks,

Bob

BearShare was certainly an advanced program for its time compared to the others. I guess it depends upon what aspect you wish to make comparisons. All gnutella programs should get about the same search results. This can vary depending on the particular peers you are connected to and what peers and leafs they are connected to.

To my knowledge, BearShare did not introduce UPnP support until 5.2. Which suggests anybody using the BearShare 5.1 beta or earlier should forward a port in their router to prevent a router's NAT firewalling effect.

The later versions of gnutella clients added more up to date gnutella protocol. This includes for connectability. To my knowledge at least, GTK-Gnutella has the most advanced protocols. Even beyond what LimeWire or FrostWire had. I guess one reason is LW was somewhat predisposed to getting their totally rewritten version 5 up to scratch for useability. And did not even get around to returning many tools version 4 had. ie: they were trying to simplify the program for marketing appeal.
GTK-Gnutella and Phex might be worth trying at least if LW does not appeal. You can make your own comparisons.

BearShare 5 versions still use GWebcache host sites intended to help keep old gnutella versions running instead of the newer UDPHostCache sites. BearShare only uses its own kind of UDPHostCache for connecting with other BearShare hosts.

I might be wrong, but I have some doubts GTK-Gnutella connects to BearShare versions any more due to it lacking some of the later gnutella connection protocol. At least I've never seen them connect to any of my BearShares over the past 12 months. (I sometimes run up to 4 or 5 BS's at a time.)

You might even have some interest in trying one of the multi-network programs which includes G2.

bearshare or as i like to call it "bearshaft" has alot of potential as a cool site it has p2p and chat it has a fair selection of music but is so full of errors that it can be a real pain to use and dreadful customer service with that said i can hardly imagine actually wanting to pay for it since its trying to be facebook's poorer cousin. it doenst even have a dislike button and people you block can still send you harrassing messages in your message inbox despite being blocked and reported dozens of times.

You are obviously referring to the later BearShare, different owner and different network (does not run on gnutella network.) Nobody should need to pay for a file-sharing program.