Today we're going to take a look at eMule and Limewire, two of the biggest free P2P filesharing programs around. We will compare them according to a certain amount of factors like version, network, downloading process, search function and extra features.

First of all, let us remind you that both programs are at very different levels of development. While eMule is known to be one of the most popular P2P applications, it is still only at version 0.47c. Limewire is now 4.12 and offers a PRO (but not free) version with advanced features. However there are loads of moded versions of eMule, like MorphXT, Plus or Xtreme with different skins or performance enhancements.

Concerning networks, eMule and Limewire are in two different ball parks. eMule connects to the eDonkey and Kad networks while Limewire connects to Gnutella. These are probably the most popular around, and yield excellent results, whatever you may be looking for. When setting up Limewire, if your router is UPnP enabled it will automatically forward a port for you. This is because Limewire supports UPnP port mapping. With eMule you will have to choose and forward a port yourself.