Cost, ease of use, speed, other good features, etc.
I’m using Private Internet Access. It’s fast and pretty lightweight compared to the other choices. Snagged a 2 year plan on sale for like 50 bucks.
I was on PIA, but they were bought by Kape a few years ago. Kape, previously known as Crossrider. Crossrider, known primarily for developing adware and PUPs.
thanks for this info, I was wondering why PIA isn’t recommended anymore
well shit, guess the recommendation I saw was outdated. that sucks
I also dropped them after the acquisition
In addition to getting acquired by a shady group, Mark Karpeles also works at PIA. I’m all for edemption arc, but that doesn’t mean I’m ok with him in charge of some security product. I dropped them for mullvad.
I use PIA as well but I have never seen good upload speeds through them, which is a shame.
RealDebrid and/or Proton VPN
ProtonVPN/Mullvad. This is the post number 288471 talking about this. Can we put it somewhere un wiki?
Mullvad or Proton
Note that Mullvad no longer allows port forwarding, which can make it harder to torrent effectively
Is it really that bad? I haven’t had any issues torrenting stuff with Mullvad, although I usually don’t torrent files above like 20GB
At least one side needs an open port in able to connect. So if your ports are closed, you can only connect to seeds/peers who have an open port. Opening your port ensures you can connect to anyone.
It’s non issue, even with +80 gb files.
The size of the file doesn’t matter. Without port forwarding you won’t be able to use things like private trackers without running the risk of getting banned. There’s no reason to use a VPN without it if your goal is torrenting.
I haven’t got any private trackers and I want a cheap setup. The only thing I’m paying for is the vpn.
Is the difference really that big and worth it?
I use AirVPN and it’s cheap with port forwarding. Without it, trackers will show you as unconnectable and nobody will be able to download from you unless they’ve set up port forwarding.
Thanks, I’ll take a look once mine expires.
It reduces your available peers. You can’t connect to other people with closed ports, one side needs to be open.
It isn’t a huge deal with popular torrents, but it can cause problems with unpopular/old stuff.
I am seeding 70 torrents on a private tracker, most of it some niche stuff. It’s getting downloaded, but I have 0.00 seeded across all 70 torrents. I have no port forwarding. 1 + 1 = you need proton / airvpn.
Then, Proton it is
No VPN, just qBittorrent and I2P = anoymous torrents
I2P?
An alternative to TOR that’s better for P2P.
If I turn off mixed mode in qbittorrent i2p settings, it should only use i2p, right?
If “mixed mode” is enabled I2P torrents are allowed to also get peers from other sources than the tracker, and connect to regular IPs, not providing any anonymization. This may be useful if the user is not interested in the anonymization of I2P, but still wants to be able to connect to I2P peers
That’s what the description says.
So then, with mixed mode disabled, I’ll be fully anonymous?
If you use only I2P torrents, yes 👍
does it still require port forwarding for seeding ? (yeah, I know port forwarding isn’t required for torrenting)
As in I2P itself or bittorrent? In order for I2P to access the network it needs to be able to access the internet. If you’re behind a router, that does mean either enabling universal plug and play (UPnP) or manually opening a port for it that forwards traffic to the port on the I2P machine. UPnP is obviously the easiest (if you’re behind a router).
ProtonVPN for port forwarding, Mullvad for easy usage (Wireguard on Linux).
I use vopono on Linux too.
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ProtonVPN works great via Wiregurd on Linux as well just not through the GUI; you can download the configs and connect through terminal or other Wireguard client
I’ll admit, I have no idea what the benefit of port forwarding is. I use Mullvad in a Gluten container.
Faster downloads (sometimes significantly), easier to connect to seeders.
It’s when you open a publicly facing port and map (forward) it to a local port your machine. In this case, it’s opened at the vpn provider’s public gateway. Otherwise, it would typically be opened in your router instead.
You can then configure your torrent client to listen on that local port that the public port is forwarded to. I think generally the public and the local port are the same number when using VPN.
If you do that, then others have the ability to initiate a connection to you instead of only you being able to initiate the connection to somebody else.
When seeding/leeching to/from someone else, at least one of you needs a port open. So, if you always have one open, you allow yourself to connect to anyone on the network regardless if they have one open or not.
Sorry if I confused you more, I’m not that great at explaining.
ProtonVPN also provides Wireguard config files if you don’t want to use their shitty python based GUI. Supports port forwarding aswell, althought it sucks to set up and requires to manually disable ipv6 support
I created a simple script to automatically request a port to ProtonVPN servers and assign it to qbittorrent:
Thank you, luckily arch-qbittorrentvpn already does those things, so I don’t have to
Thanks for sharing! I still need the script because I already have a tunnel on a Mikrotik OS vm router to route all my containers through the vpn.
Another benefit of using network namespaces is that I can just disable IPv6 in the network namespace itself.
It feels better with no condom. Private trackers have no STI’s.
Whatever you do, maybe sure you network bind the vpn interface
On Linux you can use network namespaces for the same effect (and then a firewall) - this way it doesn’t affect other applications running.
I do it with vopono.
I have a lifetime subscription for Windscribe, so I’ve just been using that with no issues for years. I’ve recommended it to some other friends and they’ve been fine.
I also pay for Proton services, so I have ProtonVPN, but I’ve yet to try it for torrenting.
I use Mullvad through Tailscale. If you already use Tailscale it’s a no-brainer
No port forwarding though.
I really really wish I could use mullvad but I had to switch to air vpn for port forwarding and then later to proton to get higher speeds (Airvpn maxes at roughly 600Mbit/s while proton can handle 2Gbit/s+) and port forwarding.
Proton VPN.
Do you really need a VPN? What’s your country / context?
Are you aware that if you use a good private tracker (one that keeps their torrents private and has a good reputation) and configure your client to require encryption for all connections you may not need a VPN?
I wasn’t. I haven’t torrented in almost a decade and even back then was fairly naive.
Would you mind lending me a hand understanding how to do that and remain safe?
Whenever you torrent from public torrent trackers it’s easy for anyone to see what torrents your IP is currently downloading / seeding. There’s even a website for that https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/
ISPs and govts may track your torrent downloads on the same way that website does. It essentially boils down to indexing the torrents from those public trackers by listening to the DHT network / PEX exchanges. When you’re on a decent private tracker (and there are some free) they will disable DHT/PEX for their torrents making it so nobody can’t index and they won’t show up on websites like the one above.
Setting your torrent client to require encryption to all connections it will create an extra protection layer because then the ISP / govt won’t be able to peek into your bittorrent traffic, they’ll only see an encrypted TLS connection like the ones made to any SSL capable website. You may also add a blacklist of known entities that go after pirates so your torrent client won’t ever connect to those.
If you live outside the US you most likely don’t even need those measures, let alone a VPN. That entire thing about sending letters to people saying they’re downloading torrents is mostly a US thing because in other countries ISPs can’t even legally do it.
I know people in Canada who have gotten letters from their ISP via torrenting.
Mullvad or IVPN. Some VPNs like Perfect Privacy do leak your IP via DHT and other torrent features, even when full lockdown mode is on. You can search ‘torrent leak test’ to verify yours doesn’t. I found out with a 2nd DMCA warning from my ISP.
I’ve been happy with AirVPN for the last year or so
Seconded.
The way they handle port forwarding is particulalry good, as compared with pia, that assigns a random port every time you bring up a connection, so you have to have a script to update your port in your client.
I would go for IPVanish, Surfshark or Windscribe… Mullvad it’s a good option too, I would bypass NordVPN.
I believe Surfshark it’s the cheapest of these options.
What’s the issue with Nord? A buddy just recommended it to me, but I rarely see it mentioned, so I’ve had a hard time understanding why not to use it.
Their reputation took a hit after a server breach in 2018.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/21/20925065/nordvpn-server-breach-vpn-traffic-exposed-encryption
It doesn’t sound like a particularly bad breach but they didn’t disclose it very quickly, which never works in a company’s favor. I use Nord VPN still. I tried Mullvad for a while and it was good, but I found Nord did a better job at getting around geoblocks, and was cheaper. I use Mullvad’s browser with it though.
