I was having an issue trying to find solid hosts. After scouring the web a little bit I came upon a thread where a user had listed a port that worked decent for him/her. I tried it, and it's working well for me. I get good hosts, solid connections and a good number of results. This may not work for everyone, but it's worth a try.

Before doing this, write down the current port, in case you have to switch back.

Open Bearshare
Click on Setup - Option
Go to the Connection tab
At the bottom (Bearshare 5.2.5.3) Change the listening port to 61898, click okay.
Close Bearshare
Reopen it.

I hope this works for you. It'd be nice to get more users back on the system.