It's been almost a year since the guys at the eMule project released a new version of it's hugely popular file sharing client but finally it's here although don't get too excited.

There are no major changes to the look and feel of eMule in this new version but they have included a a handy "ISP obfuscation" option which aims to prevent your ISP blocking eMule traffic which is an increasingly common occurrence. When you install for the first time, it takes you through the connection setup wizard as normal with the exception that this time, it asks you if you want to activate the obfuscation option which you might as well - you've got nothing to lose even if it doesn't work for your ISP. In addition to this, the team have made some other major Kad protocol improvements such as better NAT handling, direct callbacks, flood protections, etc.

There have also been several changes made to the message system to get rid of spammers and stay in touch with friends with dynamic IPs. As regards the look, there have been some minor changes such as it now stores searches between eMule sessions, there's a searchfilter for shared files and easier access to the comment filter. In addition, there are the usual small bug fixes and changes.

If you've noticed your eMule downloads have significantly slowed down over the past year, then this new beta version, with ISP obfuscation, may be the answer. It's still the best P2P file sharing network out there by miles too.