Ungodly Freezes & Fragmentation in Pro

[madlad]

I have LimeWire Pro 4.9.37 running on my MAC in OS 10.4 Tiger with 768 MB RAM. I have two issues:

1. Hang Time

When a song download reaches 99% completion and enters the "verifying" stage, the whole screen freezes. My mouse moves but nothing in LimeWire can be accessed or clicked on. When I attempt to delete a NEED MORE SOURCES search, or any failed search, from the Download Window, I click CANCEL or simply select the items and hit the delete key on my keyboard. Either action causes a similar screen freeze, and I am locked out of LimeWire until the freeze releases. I measured the hang time: about 50 seconds lost PER SEARCH DELETED. So if abortive searches accumulate in the D/L window, as they inevitably do for an active user, when I go to clear these out, I am facing a HUGE stretch of dead unusable time. If I clear 10 inactive/incomplete downloads, for example, I am locked out and stranded for about ten minutes - I measured it. Obviously, frustration runs high in the face of such delays when I could be busy sharing other tunes. In addition to the "verifying" and "canceling" freezes, other inexplicable lockouts also occur - and they typically last for minutes as well. If this a bug, is there a way to resolve it? This can't be considered acceptable, can it?

2. Hard Drive Fragmentation

The folks at the local Apple store are, alas, not fans of LimeWire; but, if my issue above can be settled, I am a fan. I do, however, have this concern. The Apple "genius bar" guys all agreed that LimeWire is aggressively unhealthy for my MAC hard drive because, they say, it deposits downloaded files at random all over my drive and causes excessive fragmentation, leading to slow performance and eventually to damage. Is this true? If so, what measures can I take to reverse these effects? I do already notice that running LimeWire dramatically slows down any other open apps on my computer, including i-Tunes, which of course must be open. I have plenty of RAM, so what can I do to reduce this effect? And what hygenic steps should I take to protect my drive?

I look forward to your responses.
Thanks very much.
madlad (madlad888@sbcglobal.net)

P.S. Just as an aside (and I know LimeWire didn't cause and can't control this), it is truly astonishing how many songs on LimeWire are misdescribed: wrong artists, wrong titles, etc.