We've released the beta version of LimeWire 3.6.0. As usual, the free version is available at:

http://www.limewire.com/english/content/beta.shtml

and the pro version is available from your pro download page.

The major improvement in 3.6.0 is the use of "out-of-band" replies to your searches. This is pretty technical change, so I'll describe it in some detail. Here's how query responses worked prior to 3.6.0:

When you sent out a query on Gnutella, anyone who received the query and had responses would send those responses back along the same route that it came, i.e. it would send it back through every LimeWire that had originally forwarded the query. This is inefficient because the LimeWires that would route the responses could be on opposite sides of the planet, forcing the LimeWire network to do much more work than necessary to get back to the querier, even circling the globe multiple times!

With LimeWire 3.6.0, however, those responses will be sent directly back to the querier instead of being sent along such an inefficient route. This allows those queries to be sent back by extremely high performing IP routers that will always clobber LimeWire's network topology in terms of performance.

The result of all of this is that the responses will get back to you much more quickly. You will especially see a speed improvement with queries for rare content because these queries travel further out on the network to get their results than queries for popular content. As a result, they have a greater distance (or number of "hops") to travel to get back to the original querier.

LimeWire 3.6.0 also adds a new "tip of the day" feature that cycles through helpful tips on using LimeWire. 3.6.0 also fixes a number of bugs from earlier versions.

Thanks for everyone's help testing the beta.

-LimeWire Team

Wahou... results are popping FAST and MORE hits are coming for rare content! Great, searches speed are now on par with Kazaa, the used to be fastest network out there! Bravo et merci!

Now time for an old bug report: I can't browse ACQX users from the upload window, but I can from the download window, so I assume this is a LW bug that as been there, well for ever... Correct that please... And test browse host with bearshare and shareaza in upload window as well. Merci

Continuez les gars!

Quick question - does a client have to be acting as an ultrapeer before it can be the receipient of out-of-band replies ?

>Quick question - does a client have to be acting as an ultrapeer before it can be the receipient of out-of-band replies ?

No. It just has to demonstrate (through use of automatic tests LimeWire performs) that it can recieve unsolicated UDP and TCP packets from users outside of its subnet.

Cheers. Will access to ports 6346-6348 through the firewall suffice or is a more sweeping range required ?

Adam and Sam--What did you do!!!!! My uploads are just flying--running as an UP and seeing 4 uploads ALL over 20KBp/s! This is great---I'm even connected through the LAN---I've never seen such success!

Please tell me you did something to make the uploads fly--the OOB stats are quickly climbing. I also updated the system software to 10.28 today. Or, is it time to call my ISP and find out if they did something?

One problem...If you are using the black theme with LimeWire, the Tip of the Days can't be read at all since the text color matches the window's background color. The only thing that can be read are hyperlinks. So on my first load, I saw; "Did you know? LimeWire Pro!" (which was, in a way, quite humorous) and nothing else in the Tip of the Day dialog.

The color problem occurs in the Help -> About dialog in LimeWire, also. At the top of the scrollable About window where it shows LimeWire's version and URL, that text also cannot be seen when using the Black theme since it uses black text on a black background when I do use it.

Also, on load, you can't even see how many files you are sharing at the bottom left of the LimeWire window when using the Black theme, since there, it also uses black text on a black background. The files shared number shows up properly with the Black theme only after I do a library refresh (even when I made no changes to my library) and then it uses proper text color.

>Will access to ports 6346-6348 through the firewall suffice or is a more sweeping range required ?

If you're using a firewall / router, it must be set to forward UDP packets as well as TCP packets on the normal gnutella ports.

At home, for example, I have port 6666 set up to forward to 6666 to my computer, and have LimeWire set to listen on port 6666 as well as 'Forced IP' checked with 6666 as the port.

If I had the firewall set up to listen to 6666 and forward to 6346, I'd have LimeWire listen to port 6346 and have 'Forced IP' checked with 6666 as the port.

re stief: I don't recall anything specific changing with uploads, although we do tinker with code ... we'll take the credit, but I'd suggest calling up and thanking your ISP also.

re limenut: Just fixed that. Thanks for the heads up.

OS 10.2.8 update is pulled--serious bug disabling direct ethernet connections.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107669

LOL! The ISP said the great upload speeds are not because of them, so that left the OSX update!

I installed the 3.6.0-Pro Beta and disabled the installer option for Load LW At Startup. The installer correctly left my Windows Startup folder alone. Then, while reviewing Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> System Startup, I saw that this option was marked enabled.

So,
1. The installer needs to modify the setting in Tools/Options/etc.
2. The option in Tools/Options/etc needs to work when it's enabled.