An accelerator tool that is an add-on for Azureus to enhance download speeds.

Features: The Azureus Ultra Accelerator is an add-on for the Azurues peer to peer (P2P) file sharing application. It overcomes some limitations of the basic Azurues program and improves the overall downloading. One way how it does so is by frequently checking to see if there are more peers online that have a particular file that is currently being downloaded (this is done perhaps more frequently than Azureus would typically do). As and when new peers are discovered it ends up improving the download speed. Other than that it aims to utilize as much of the available bandwidth as possible at the user’s end and therefore over long periods it has faster average speeds than just a basic Azureus application running. Additional features are pretty standard for this kind of add-on: automatic resumption of paused downloads; managing frequent stop / start connections by appropriately stopping / starting downloads; autosave of configuration information on exiting of the application, or on computer shut down, so that it can be reloaded on startup resulting in all incomplete downloads being resumed automatically; and automatic clearing completed and invalid files.

Overall: Azureus Ultra Accelerator is a very good tool for slower and unreliable connections. Download times are significantly improved and so is the overall user experience because the user has to worry about little besides just searching for a particular file and then letting the program go. Thereafter, everything else will get taken care of (including clearing from the list of completed files) by the Ultra Accelerator. However, there is a moderate improvement on better connections. The simplistic interface provides for no customization so the user is stuck with whatever little improvement he / she gets on better connections. Advanced users especially will find this fact frustrating and indeed they may have to resort to tinkering with the base Azureus tool and its settings (along with network settings in the home or work place) to further improve performance. Although, it must be said, that for many users on fast connections, the automatic management features really enable them to leave downloads running overnight and so not much more improvement may be required.