TorrentFreak has the whole story and some interesting figures on the market share of the now-defunct P2P system. The figures are from 2008, but show a massive market share of 37%, followed by uTorrent with 14%. This has likely changed a bit over the course of two years, with torrents become more popular.

Some users report that the LimeWire client installed on their system now refuses to update. Others report that the client itself is still working as intended and showing results for searches, which makes sense considering that it operates on the Gnutella network which has not been affected by the ruling. And while the P2P software is not available on the developer’s homepage, it is still available on third party download portals.

LimeWire users who are looking for an alternative may want to take a look at the Open Source client FrostWire which offers a similar functionality. Check out Alternative.to for more LimeWire replacements.

But since this is a slow day I decided to take a closer look at one of the tools that got released recently, to demonstrate that these tools are not accelerating the downloads.

Wirebooster is advertised as bringing “crazy extra power to your file sharing client”. The program has been designed to work with lots of different P2P clients including Frostwire, uTorrent, Emule or DC++.

Warning lights should go off immediately as the introductory text on the program’s homepage contains no information on how the speed on the P2P networks are accelerated. What you get is this:

While requiring the lowest CPU usage, WireBooster harnesses powerful features able to skyrocket the performance of your file sharing application almost instantly! Once you’ve installed the software (and launched the p2p client) you can sit back and let it boost some download speed.

Among the numerous advantages of WireBooster is its ease of use and its good looking, well thought-out interface. The program makes any technical skill redundant since its simplicity allows even a newbie to use it properly – it’s like point-and-shoot cameras, you just start the program and then totally forget about it.

Still, not saying how the program accelerates P2P traffic is not enough to say it does not work at all. Lets take a look at how the program is used.

Wirebooster displays all controls in the main interface on startup after installation. It tries to detect available P2P clients automatically and displays them in the P2P run list. Below that are all installed network adapters of the system, and users need to select the right one for the program to display traffic statistics.

To boost P2P traffic users need to select the P2P client (e.g. Frostwire, uTorrent), the right network adapter (trial and error works) and press the big status button to start the acceleration.

Wirebooster then starts to display percentage statistics in the lower half. It is not clear if that is supposedly the accelerated speed gain or an overall speed graph. Now, for my own unscientific test. It is possible to turn the acceleration on and off in the program interface.

Without P2P acceleration download speeds varied between 350 and 550 kB per second. With the accelerator enabled download speeds varied between 330 and 570 kB. While that looks like a gain of 20 kB it has to be noted that traffic fluctuates constantly, and that the difference is likely a fluctuation and not an acceleration caused by the P2P accelerator.

And even if it was the case, the lowest speed was 20 Kilobytes below the normal connection speed. What’s the conclusion? For me, P2P accelerators do not work. That’s all I’m saying. If I would have to guess, I’d say they do not do work for anyone out there. Wirebooster is just one of the programs available that supposedly boost the speed of the P2P traffic.

Have you made different experiences? Let me know in the comments.

As LimeWire is open-source, several forks of it exist. One of these forks is called FrostWire, a client which appears and works in a similar fashion but removes many limitations of the free version of LimeWire. FrostWire also has some features which LimeWire Pro lacks, such as BitTorrent support.

Unlike LimeWire Pro, FrostWire is completely free to use and download. FrostWire is based on LimeWire’s Java engine and as such, it works on OS X, Linux and Windows, providing Java 1.5 or above is installed.

FrostWire can identify files tagged as Creative Commons in searches, much like LimeWire does, it can filter out junk results like LimeWire, supports proxies, works well with iTunes and there’s no viruses or spyware with it. A more in-depth review is on my weblog, Webby’s World.

FrostWire is an easy way to save $35 if you really wanted to buy LimeWire Pro. It is also a way to ensure people do not profit from tools which mainly facilitate piracy!