thanks LOTR, gone from 5 back to 4.16. lets see if that fixes the problem.

cheers matt

well at least i now know that the problem is with the entire LW program and not just LW 5.
4.16 is just as crappy, doesn't matter what you search for the same 5 things come up every time.
tried to paste it here so you can see my problem but it wont let me.
starting to think that i should just give LW a big miss from now on, but i find FW even worse.

As Peerless suggested, spam has nothing to do with the version of LW you are using.

The fact is there are lots & lots of spammers on the network. Their objective is to make people like you feel like giving up attempting to use the gnutella network.

What LW 4.16 does do is give you access to earlier LW version users because LW 5 & 4.18 prevent people using versions of LW earlier than 4.14 connecting to them, thus blocking out part of the network. (I use LW 4.16 & connect to people using versions as early as 4.8). LW 4 has more tools than LW 5. LW 4.16 will resume LW 5's incomplete files efficiently whereas LW 4.18 seems to have a problem.

Here's some tips about searching on the gnutella network: 1. Virus thread: Typical virus spam file sizes - Make a note of them (click on blue link to see),

2. http://www.gnutellaforums.com/tips-t...avoidance tips, __ 3. How to find music

BTW if you downgrade from LW 5 back to LW 4.16, you need to find the Downloads.dat file in the preferences folder & move it to the incomplete folder before installing LW 4.16. This should be done whilst LW is not open. After installing & opening LW 4.16, then go to Library window, find incomplete folder, select all incomplete files & press Resume button. This will force the incomplete files from LW 5 to resume again.