that the gnutella is almost deserted, even compared to 2-3 months ago? I mean, searches come up with practically nothing by comparison. Am I falsely attributing this to a lack of users on the network, am I demented, both or something else?

Oh and BTW, etVoila, fancy meeting you here after all the grief you (and others) gave me on the LW forum. I followed up on that spyware thread and true to form, I was called every name in the book, just because I dared to think... and now you've broken with them: funny. Oh yeah I can anticipate all the rationalisations, but you know what? Who cares. If you (et al) have participated in the development of FW, my hat's off to you, for it is better than LW, even before the DRM filters, just for the fact that it doesn't call home (as offensively). And I found the setting in the .conf file to turn it off (yay).

As you can perhaps see, I am not any of those things that I was called in the LW forum, just a guy--not one obcessed with correctness, but one who speaks truth--handily demonstrated by the reaction to it (ahem!). If anyone had bothered to actually read my words, all that could have been avoided. It is past, and we let bygones be... .

I too have left LW, and am very glad I found FW, and am grateful to its developers. Also I have found Phex, which is very impressive, so I'll use both. The paucity of users on Phex as well leads me to wonder where everyone has gone. Scared by the big bad wolf? Dunno. Maybe filesharing is over... just musing.

Take care.