Cost, ease of use, speed, other good features, etc.
I went the seed box route and I’ll never go back. It’s faster and I don’t even need a stable connection. Start the download from my phone and it’s waiting for me when I get home.
No VPN, just qBittorrent and I2P = anoymous torrents
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).
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 👍
Mullvad or Proton. IVPN is also good.
Another user already said this, but just in case, Mullvad got rid of their port forwarding.
Mullvad got rid of their port forwarding.
So did IVPN. Use Proton VPN now.
I have been for years.
I forget about port forwarding because I never get to seed because of my abysmal upload speed.
I understand completely. I believe my speed is 175/10, so although the download is great, the upload is rather pitiful. Even with PF, I still get maybe a total upload of anywhere from 500 KiB/s–1 MiB/s according to qBittorrent.
Why does everyone talk about port forwarding when it comes to Mullvad and seeding? When I tried out Mullvad and torrenting last month I was able to seed just fine. Is there something I’m missing?
You can seed, but you’re depending on other people opening their ports to seed and download.
Can still seed with upnp forwarding
I don’t know what that is. Sorry.
what is upnp forwarding?
Universal plug and play You can enable it in Qbittorrent’s settings
Something you shouldn’t use. UPnP means programs can open ports automatically without your input which is a big security risk.
UPnP is widely considered to be a significant security risk, just FYI. Because it allows any random device on your network to poke holes in your firewall whenever they want. You should go disable it on your router.
Plus UPnP doesn’t work in a lot of configurations. CGNAT, for instance, blocks UPnP.
I lnow. But its the only way to get port forwarding with mullvad
Not only is UPnP a security risk, it’ll work only if a user has an IP that can expose ports. IPv4 addresses are becoming rarer on home networks and CGNAT connections can’t expose ports even if one turns on UPnP.
I pay for Proton Unlimited so I use Proton VPN. Getting port forwarding to work on Linux is a bit of a hassle but they have steps on their website. It’s hardly any slower than my internet connection, but that’s because I’m on the paid servers. The free servers are rather slow. They have a graphical client for Windows and Linux.
Proton Unlimited is €12.99/month. The VPN has a good number of features and you get the whole Proton suite with it and 500GB of storage. You can pay for just the VPN which is cheaper if you don’t want the rest of Proton.
I created a script exactly for that, I’m using it for months now and it’s working fine: https://github.com/giu176/ProtonVPN-auto-NATPMP
Yo!! Thanks for sharing. The qbittorrent-nox integration is just what I need!
Express VPN
I use ProtonVPN whenever I download a lot of Linux ISOs.
Several times a week I too download all the Linux ISOs, and I will have a look at ProtonVPN 👍
Just curious, why do you download so many ISOs?
Whatever else does one download with a torrent app? I mean, I hear there are illegal uses but YOU WOULDNT STEAL A CAR
It’s code.
Something to do on a Saturday night. Sit down with the fam and scroll through the code with a bowl of popcorn to pass around.
Proton VPN.
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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.
Proton
I’m using selfhosted wireguard server. Speed about 250 mbps and this VPS costs me about 3$ per month. Super easy to deploy wireguard server using this script
What VPS service?
Yeah, same question. I thought most of them would be super strict about torrreting.
What VPS?
Prices look veeerrrryyy good for the higher end VPS. Hows the UI/UX for managing them? Have you had to deal with their support?
I’ve never talked to their support team. I suspect that this company just doesn’t pay taxes or something like that. I noticed that they accept Russian payment methods (for some users, as stated on their website). I am using the cheapest server and the lscpu command shows the AMD EPYC Milan processor. As far as I can tell, it’s a Zen 3 processor, which is pretty cool for the price.
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 Proton
Note that Mullvad no longer allows port forwarding, which can make it harder to torrent effectively
Then, Proton it is
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
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.
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.
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.
I use Mullvad and have a qbit go through gluetun. I don’t mind the lack of port forwarding, as I leave the Pi on 24/7 and I’m not under ratio constraints. Also, my system isn’t secure enough for me to be messing with that stuff, next build I’ll get everything off root, set proper permissions, route everything through a single port etc, then think about port forwarding. For now I’ll hide behind my ISP and Mullvad’s security while I learn and make mistakes.
Down is quick enough for me and Up is slow but constant.
ProtonVPN for port forwarding, Mullvad for easy usage (Wireguard on Linux).
I use vopono on Linux too.
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.
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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
Another benefit of using network namespaces is that I can just disable IPv6 in the network namespace itself.
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.
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
