Shareaza

If you do nothing else soon, can you please at least fix the push source bug? They eventually download, but it requires constant nursemaiding. Instead of just selecting a file to download and waiting and eventually it downloads, if a file's on a push source then 2.5.1.0 will at intervals keep forgetting the source, so it changes from one source to no sources. The interval seems random -- sometimes less than a minute, sometimes many hours. But the upshot is that to get the file you can't just set it and forget it; you have to keep the search results open, check frequently, and double-click the desired result every time it forgets the source until eventually it downloads. Downloads.NeverDrop doesn't prevent this behavior, either.

It's a massive pain and, worse, it's frustrating. Non-push-source files work fine; Shareaza will keep trying until eventually it gets the file. Only push source files are affected this way.

Especially nasty is that it can even happen in the middle of downloading. Last night I had a 50MB FLAC file get half done and then go suddenly from transferring to searching no sources, then had to re-add the source half a dozen times before it eventually deigned to download the other half of the file.

Could you plz tell us how the results of your connection test are?
The connection tests can be accessed via 'Help>>Connection test' inside of Shareaza.

Yes. Manual port forward at router, firewall permission granted. I just snarfed down a torrent last night at a decent speed, which wouldn't generally work well if I had firewall issues, too.

Ok... That's really strange.

Could you try this build plz and see whether it fixes the problem? (There have been some code changes that could influence your issue) And could you plz report back the results of the connection test for this version in any case?

What are the risks to my incomplete downloads/machine/etc. if I try your unstable alpha?

There should be no risk for your computer, and in order to make sure there is no risk for your (incomplete) downloads, it is enough to make a copy of your incomplete folder and to save it somewhere else, in case the upgrade process should cause corruption of your downloads. That's all.

(The warning message on startup is there to scare off noobs )

It is badware.

"Use Shareaza to manage all my web downloads" was turned on by default with 2.5 I noticed, before then it was off by default.
If that is the cause of the problems why not just change it back?