Once upon a time, a popular search string would yield HUNDREDS of results winthin seconds, and downloads over cable modem could exceed 100KB/s. And you could still surf the web while Limewire was running.

For the last two months or so, search results have been poor at best. Host connectivity is in shambles. Downloads rarely, if ever, exceed 4KB/s, and connections usually fail before downloads complete. Also, Limewire chokes off user bandwidth to the point that web browsers take several minutes to load a single web page, even with a broadband connection! It actually seems that Limewire siezes so much bandwidth now that its very reason for being is rendered moot: there's no bandwidth allowed for file sharing!!!

The new version of Limewire is STUFFED with adware and spyware -- there is no way I will ever install it on my system. Things started going bad with the 1.6x versions, and grew progressively worse until arriving at the present bundle of bandwidth theft and consumer spying.

What is going on? Is LimeWire just a Trojan Horse? What does it use consumer bandwidth for, is it's not letting consumers transfer files as it once did?

Personally, I want another peer-to-peer solution; LimeWire is altogether useless. Can anyone recommend an effective and trustworthy replacement?