Why is it I can browse some hosts but not others?

I don't know, but I hope someone can explain ... It's not a new topic and fwiw, if I have a host downloading a lot of stuff from me and I can't browse them, I am more than likely to cut them off. This may be unjustified behavior, but I do it, as do others, I am sure.

So they're most likely freeloaders. When I come across this problem again I'll do the same thing... cut them off!

In truth I am not absolutely sure they are necessarily freeloaders ... For all I know you may not be able to browse MY share, although I have done nothing to stop you or anyone else. I do make an attempt to work out if they are freeloaders, and on one occasion I did a search for a file I guessed this particular host might be sharing .. They were, and I could browse them from the search tab. In fact we were and are regular exchangers of files.

So the matter is not quite that simple. A clear explanation of this would be welcomed by many of us!

not being able to browse hosts can sometimes be due to people that are firewalled or having a slow dial up connection

If someone has an explanation, please let me know because it has never worked for me along with the chat function, so I just gave up on trying. But the firewall explanation sounds logical to me, most programs would interpret that as an attack...we hope!!!

I do not think that is that they are not sharing althougt some may not be. Last night I was doing some testing trying to brouse host that were DL from me. I came up with some strange results I would write down IP adress then try to brouse most of the time I would get nothing on the screen or cant brouse host message. I would then kill the DL if I did not get any results. Some of these IP adresses would show up latter and I would brouse them again and on a few of them I was able to get results, But if I tried to brouse them again no results. The brouse host feature on LW does not appear to work very well and needs allot of improvement. I do not believe the freeloader option works at all because if it did, on the host that it says unable to brouse should no be allowed to DL from you at all due to the fact that they a showing 0 files shared since they cannot be broused. And while I was testing I had it set to a min of 10 files shared and 75% of the people DL from me had the message cannot be broused. So that says to me it is not working it is just there to pasify people but I am no expert just do allot of testing to see what works and what does'nt.

Latter Grandpa

I thought that putting the face with its tongue sticking out would have indicated that I was just joking around but obviously not. I am very aware that if I cannot browse a host that it means they may be freeloaders. I sometimes can't browse someone because I have a firewall restricting me from doing so. If that has happened to me then I know it has happened to others.

There are a few reasons why you may not be able to browse a host other than them blocking you.

1 ] It is possible that you and the downloder are connected through another members computer and that member has blocked browsing or has a firewall.

2] the person you wish to browse has just logged off.

3] Many people with modems have splitters that allow them to use the same phone line for their regular telephone. to do this the signal is shut on and off rapidly at the same time the phone signal is so that the computer is connected for 1/10,000 a second, then the phone is connected the next 1/10,000 second, then back to the computer. Such a connection may fool the limewire browse program into thinking that the person has logged off.

4] poor internet connections

5] another possible problem is that limewire may be tricked into browsing the wrong member. If you had downloaded file X in the past and are now browsing someone who is downloading file X from you then limewire may be searching for the member you downloaded from instead.

The browse function is too often mistakenly used as a guide as to whether people are freeloaders. This is a totally incorrect assumption that just because you can't browse them or come up with zero results they aren't sharing. The browse function was a tool that was donated to LW a long time ago & it has never been improved upon.

I'll give you an example: I couldn't browse from someone I was downlding from despite they had chat enabled. On another day, I browsed someone & it showed about 60 results. 2 minutes later I browsed again & there were over 200 results of files.

Browse is not a reliable tool for that purpose & is an unreliable & poor indicator as to whether someone is sharing or not.

Browse is very good however at helping to continue downlds if you're downlding more than one file from a particular host. I use it for that purpose all the time (as well as seeing what other files of interest they may have or of same album, etc.)