eMule Plus is a spin-off of the highly successful eMule project and mainly aims to improve both its interface and efficiency. Based on the eDonkey 2000 P2P network, the developer slogan for the project is, “The eye candy eMule client, feel the boogie.” So we got down with the boogie to see if it lives up to the hype.

As far as the eye candy goes, the main interface is almost identical to the original eMule so don’t expect any big surprises there. The main changes involve the way the program handles downloads. In a nutshell this means one thing – your downloads should be more stable. The way it verifies files as well means that you should also end-up with fewer corrupt or false files. In terms of speed, we noticed very little difference between eMule and eMule Plus although the latter is supposed to be a little bit slower. This is because it aims to increase the number of other seeds available to avoid the problem in eMule where people seek the fastest download and then switch-off. The result is that although you may not experience quite the same download speeds, you should get a more consistent download which could mean you eventually download the file quicker.

Whether eMule Plus is more stable is still unclear. Over prolonged use, users report differing experiences although this will also depend on what other programs you are running alongside it. As with the original program, you are more likely to experience instability issues if you have multiple downloads of big files left running over an extended period of time.

eMule Plus seems to have pretty much all the benefits of eMule – except that it doesn't seem to be updated as often as the original. However, if you’ve experienced persistent problems with the original eMule, then eMule Plus is definitely worth a go. You should certainly experience more stable downloads if nothing else.