Thanks for the reply, backmann! I must admit I have to go do a little learning about what the difference is between a .4 and a .6 handshake. But, if that is possibly filling the network with unreliable connections, that's definitely something I don't want to do.

I'd also like to add in general that I've been doing a lot of reading since I saw a news story about my ISP (Verizon) possibly being forced to reveal the name of one of their customers targeted by the RIAA (for those interested, I posted it in the General Gnutella / Gnutella Network Discussion section). As I started to look through the posts in that area to see if there were any similar stories, I began to realize how uninformed I have been on what's going on in the P2P world and how it is being battled by various media and software companies. Through one of those posts in that section, I also found a link to a Shareaza forum that explained a lot more of what has been going on and how their P2P program and others are trying to combat it.

Well, maybe by itself, Gnotella is or isn't "bad" for the network. But, judging by what I have been reading, it is definitely bad for the network in its current state of siege. Not only that, but if I read everything correctly, Gnotella could easily be bad for me in a few ways; none of which sound appealing.

Maybe I have guessed wrong, but I have the feeling it's issues like these that prompted the remarks that inspired my original post. Whether correct or not, I think it's time I finally say goodbye to Gnotella and go with Shareaza or maybe one of the others I haven't tried yet; if only so I don't have to keep re-adding my blocked hosts (the one thing I found irritating about Gnotella that they never got the chance to solve) since that list appears to be getting longer by the hour.

Sorry, ghost of Gnotella. I held out as long as I could, but now it's time to say goodbye.