I was under the impression that these P2P were ultimately connected at some level. A friend of mine, using Kazaa could not find my files. Looking at the Forum root, I saw Morpheus and a couple other P2P transports that I had considered but didn't see Kazaa or some others.

Do I have to use Kazaa (or my friend Xolox) to 'see' each other?

Is there anyway I can connect to the 'otehr' hosts?

Speaking of "hosts," I notice that I typically connect to about "4 of 5 hosts" at any given time. Who are these hosts and how can I tell which ones I'm connected too (and which ones I'm not)?

It appears to be the Guentella Client, but where do I find out exactly what they entail?

I've searched the forums and not come up with any clear answers, any help appreciated, BLH.

The likelyhood of happening to run into your friend's computer on Gnutella is very small. Gnutella does not use a central server. There is no database of files to search through. Instead you search only a few computers that you are connected to. Those hosts then relay your search. The searches are limited to a certian number of layers, which creates a network horizon, where you cannot see past. Unless you specifically connect to your friend's computer, you probably will not see them. You can do so by adding the IP of your friend's computer to your list of IPs, and hope Xolox picks the one you want. P2P is not the best way to download files that you from a specific host.