I am having problems connecting, and it could be my ISP, but I have not confirmed that.

I will try to get answers here. I have no firewall running, a straight to the box cable connection, yet within 12 hours I have had hundreds of hits and yet only one person has been able to successfully download from me.

I believe it may be my ISP, or if not, something funny is going on. I had not used Limewire for several years and now have it back up again. I am running version 3.5.8.

Here are some mitigating/complicating factors:

* I have not run Limewire in many months, maybe even over a year.

* I have a Macintosh computer; yesterday I installed Zone Alarm on Virtual PC. Virtual PC is a program/app that runs Windows (yes, real Windows) within a Window on your Macintosh's desktop, and I have Windows 2000 built into it whenever I turn on Virtual PC. I can use, for example, Microsoft for Windows' Internet Explorer 6.0 or run any .exe file from within Virtual PC. Yesterday, I installed Zone Alarm to protect Virtual PC from getting attacked, but it is not supposed to affect the rest of the Mac, as long as Virtual PC is not running. The reason for this is that the Mac cannot run .exe apps or files. Therefore ZoneAlarm will not work on the Mac. However, once I learned people were giving me a lot of hits in Limewire but not being able to download from me, I went back into Virtual PC, uninstalled Zone Alarm, and rebooted Windows, then quit Virtual PC (also quitting Windows). I also have noticed that, when Virtual PC is running, it uses its own hidden firewall of some sort, it actually disables OS X's firewall, so I cannot run Virtual PC while running Limewire. Anyway with ZoneAlarm gone, I still saw no improvement. So the problem appeared to be somewhere in the Mac's files or programs.

* I also installed Net Barrier X3 yesterday for the Mac. I only discovered tonight that it was blocking all of the people trying to get in. I disabled the firewall feature, so I started seeing no blocking, and people attempting to connect, but so far only one person is actually downloading a file.

* Although I have a wireless router, it is currently not enabled.

* Although I have an OS X firewall, it is currently not enabled. When it was enabled, I did have the necessary port for Limewire enabled so that Limewire could get through. Also my wireless router, a DLink, is set to let Limewire through. I do not recall having problems with either OS X's firewall or Dlink in the past.

*UPDATE: As I am writing this, I am noticing a number of people able to connect. What I did, besides turning off Firewall in NetBarrier, is to also, under NetBarrier's Firewire tab, General, click on "No restrictions" at the moment. This seems to have freed up NetBarrier to allow people in. Supposdly NetBarrier is still set up to show when someone is attempting to break in to my system, but I don't know this for certain, now that I have set it to "No restrictions." If anyone can enlighten me on how to use NetBarrier with Limewire, I would appreciate it. Because I feel a bit uncomfortable leaving NetBarrier at "No restrictions."

*I would also like to go back to using my OS firewall, which does have the port available for Limewire, and even my wireless router, which likewise has ports available for Limewire.

Any advice would be appreciated, and maybe this post will help anyone else out there who is having trouble with incoming traffic not being able to connect. Thanks.

I cannot answer the majority of your q's b'c firewalls is not my area. I'm just a little curious why you're so 'over' proctective about your mac system (at the same time probably most mac users are under protected.) How many mac viruses have u ever seen? Ok even pc's can detect out mac computers & sys's but how effective could any of their other spy apps work (that may depend upon how many win similar apps you have such as browsers.) Consider they're designed for manipulating the win os which is considerably different.
As far as virtual pc & win 2000 goes, yeah I haven't yet been brave enough to connect to the net via that os! But keep in mind the limitations of vpc, particularly re: hardware & some softws. This post doesn't really say anything but scrape up a few queries. (Sorry sonnet I hope u don't think I'm wasting your time here.)

I am sonnet, but I will have to post this as Unregistered, because I changed my email address, yet your forum never sent me one to my former or current email, so it is locking me out.

First, I laugh when you say that most mac users are underprotected. We are the most protected OS in the world.

However, since I have a cable modem, I decided to take an extra step and add NetBarrier, in case of hackers ... although honestly it has caught zero, and I don't think hackers could hack into my system, since all my ports run in stealth mode, and I cannot even be pinged so no one knows I even exist.

Virtual PC is not really an OS, even though it includes an OS. It is not really a question of being brave. The only thing is, if you are running Virtual PC, it will disable your Mac OS X's firewall, because it uses its own.

It was kind of a waste of time. because really, you didn't answer any of my questions!

Basically, as stated above, I have narrowed it down to: NetBarrier needs to be running on "No restrictions" so people can connect. I was asking if anyone with experience with NetBarrier and Macs and Limewire knows how to use NetBarrier with Limewire.

For now, I am turning off NetBarrier, and going back to my good ole Mac OSX firewall, plus the addition of all of my ports in stealth mode, including that pesky 113. Block WAN ping means no one can even ping me, so as far as the internet goes, I don't exist. The idea of NetBarrier was for a backup, a "just in case" in case someone found their way in. I can run it for a couple of weeks or months, and then if it catches nothing, without its firewall being used, I will know that my Mac OS X firewall is doing its job.

Thanks anyway, LOTR, and if you can tell someone about my *!$* account being locked due to me changing my stupid email address, I would appreciate it. I sent an email, but it was probably to the president of the company, not the board admin here.