What is the Best VPN for Torrenting?
ExpressVPN is without doubt the best VPN we have tested for torrenting.
Not only is it easy to use and reliable, but it also was one of the fastest VPNs we tested for torrenting. Even without port forwarding, it has consistently been the most convenient and safest VPN for torrenting.
Most importantly, ExpressVPN has a proven record of strong security, an excellent minimal logging policy, and no evidence of mistakes or bad practice in its past. We believe you can 100% put your trust in ExpressVPN when torrenting.
Why Do You Need a VPN for Torrenting?
You can torrent files without using a VPN, but we strongly recommend you don’t.
A good VPN will encrypt your P2P traffic, disguise your IP address, and protect your identity while torrenting. This prevents your internet service provider (ISP), government, and any other third party from spying on your activity, and allows you to access content that’s restricted to certain locations.
BitTorrent is a P2P or ‘peer-to-peer’ protocol. This means that every other user downloading the same file is connected in a group called a ‘swarm’. Many BitTorrent clients allow you to view a list of other devices you’re connected to when leeching or seeding files on the network.
Without a VPN, your IP address and identity will be visible to everyone in the torrenting swarm including other users, content owners, and copyright trolls. Your ISP can monitor your traffic and work with authorities to issue legal notices for copyright infringement.
If you’re caught downloading copyrighted material you could face financial penalties or even imprisonment.
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DMCA notices will normally come directly from your ISP
Many countries are ramping up copyright violation laws and enforcement actions, particularly in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. This trend is happening throughout Europe as well, specifically in countries like Germany, Denmark, and Austria.
The US is home to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which can penalize repeat copyright violations with fines of up to $1,000,000. The UK has similar legislation called the Digital Economy Act, which raised the maximum sentence for copyright infringement to up to 10 years.
Large media companies also monitor torrent traffic and collect IP addresses from torrent swarms. Copyright holders often outsource their litigation to law companies called ‘copyright trolls’. These third parties monitor popular torrents for the IP addresses of users that are uploading or downloading files. They then match those IP addresses to the ISP that assigned them, and use ISP to send a request for settlement or copyright violation notice to the user.
While we do not condone copyright violations, we do want to make sure that users stay safe.
To summarize, a VPN will protect you against the following threats:
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Your Internet Service Provider (ISP)
ISPs use Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to analyze your internet traffic. If you don’t encrypt your traffic, your ISP will monitor and record all the files you upload or download through torrenting.
It may use this information against you by blocking your P2P traffic or restricting the file-sharing websites you’ve visited. If you’ve broken the law, your ISP could send you a DMCA notice, a warning about downloading copyrighted material, or even pass your information to third-parties like content owners and copyright enforcement agencies.
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Other Peers in the Torrent Swarm
All of the devices downloading a torrent file are known as peers, while those uploading are called seeders. Together, all of these devices make up the ‘torrent swarm’.
In every torrent swarm, the IP addresses of all participants are visible. This means everybody can see your personally identifying information. It’s possible that someone could relate your true IP address to your real life identity and use this information for other scams or harassment.
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Third-Parties Monitoring Downloads
Copyright enforcement organizations infiltrate and monitor torrent swarms to catch torrenters out. Research by the University of Birmingham discovered extensive monitoring of the most popular content available on torrent sites.
Copyright trolls – who seek violations in order to profit from damages or litigation – have been known to harass even users who do not breach copyright laws with DMCA requests. It’s best to keep your IP address out of public torrents to avoid these.
In addition, all of your P2P activity is being recorded and published online. Third parties are creating huge databases of torrenting activity – including IP addresses – available for anyone to see. Thanks to websites such as these, it is easier than ever for attorneys and media companies to target users.
If you’ve been torrenting without a VPN and you don’t believe that third parties can see what you’ve downloaded, take a look at this tool for a snapshot of the latest torrents matched to your public IP address.
It’s clear that masking your IP address is vital for bittorrent users. No matter where you are located, using a good VPN for torrenting and P2P downloading is essential.
You also need to trust the file you’re downloading. A VPN won’t stop you from downloading malicious content – the best way to make sure you get a safe file is to only download torrents from trusted sources with plenty of active peers and seeders. It’s also good practice to scan new files with security software like Windows Defender.
What Is the Best Free VPN for Torrenting?
There aren’t many free VPNs we recommend for torrenting. Free VPNs aren’t ideal even in normal circumstances, and it’s especially advisable to avoid using free VPNs for anonymous P2P activity.
While there are lots of free VPNs on the market, most of them are insecure and dangerous to user privacy. It’s not uncommon for free VPNs to throttle speeds, cap data usage, and even collect your data to sell to third parties.
Here are a few of the reasons why free VPNs are a particularly bad choice for torrenting:
- P2P Support – The majority of free VPNs don’t allow P2P or torrenting traffic at all. Even popular services like Hotspot Shield restrict torrenting to users of its premium plan.
- Data Caps – To incentivize users to upgrade, most free VPN services come with bandwidth and data caps that limit the number of files you can download.
- Slow Speeds – Most free VPNs are too slow or unreliable to download large files quickly.
- Poor Security – It’s much more likely your IP address will leak if you’re using a free service. Our research found that 25% of free Android VPN apps fail to protect user privacy due to DNS and IP leaks. A further 85% featured excessive permissions with the potential for privacy abuses.
- Tracking & Malware – Free services often include tracking libraries or malware designed to collect your data. One academic study found that almost 40% of Android VPNs included malware. In addition, services like Hola VPN will steal your bandwidth in order to sell it to third parties.
- Invasive Logging Policies – Running a VPN network is expensive, and free VPNs have to cover this cost without relying on subscription fees. As a result, the vast majority of free services include some form of data logging or advertising, which is dangerous to user privacy.
Essentially, many free VPNs simply aren’t trustworthy. They are more often than not shady businesses which rely on giving your data to advertisers to make a profit. If you’re looking to find a VPN for torrenting, you need to avoid using a service that will record your activity and IP address.
There are some trustworthy free VPNs that will work for occasional torrenting. We recommend Windscribe Free and Hide.Me free, but you can find our full list of the best free VPNs for torrenting here. Windscribe free allows P2P traffic on most servers and offers a generous 10GB data cap along with a clear no-logs policy and VPN kill switch.
Overall, using a free VPN for torrenting is not as safe or secure as a paid service, and paid VPNs have much more to offer. By purchasing a trustworthy VPN, you’re supporting the provider and investing in improved privacy, additional security features, and 24/7 customer support.
If you’re looking to save money, we recommend you choose an affordable premium VPN for torrenting like PrivateVPN, which is currently available for just $1.89 per month on a two-year subscription plan. You can also take a look at VPNs with free trials or the best cheap VPNs.
Which VPNs Should You Avoid for Torrenting & P2P?
Not all VPNs are suitable for safe and private torrenting. Some VPNs block P2P traffic, and others don’t fully protect your privacy. Out of the 70 VPN services we’ve reviewed, the vast majority just didn’t make the cut.
You should avoid any VPN that doesn’t explicitly say it supports P2P traffic. Look for a clear torrenting policy in the terms of service as well as strict no-logging rules in the privacy policy.
It’s also important to check third-party reviews to make sure the provider has good speeds and no history of forwarding users DMCA requests. These reviews will also be able to tell you how secure the VPN service is in terms of encryption, leaks, and a kill switch.
In short, you should avoid VPNs that :
- Don’t allow torrenting or P2P activity of any kind.
- Aren’t fast enough, resulting in slow downloads.
- Leak your real IP address or lack a VPN kill switch.
- Keep user logs, including information about your torrenting history.
- Have bandwidth and data usage restrictions.
Here are some popular VPNs you should avoid using for torrenting:
Is Torrenting Legal?
As long as you pick a trusted client, torrenting itself is totally legal and doesn’t pose any risk to you. However, torrenting copyrighted material is illegal almost everywhere. Your ISP and copyright trolls are constantly monitoring P2P networks like Bittorrent and uTorrent in order to identify who is downloading and sharing copyrighted files.
Every country has different laws when it comes to privacy, torrenting, and copyright infringement. For this reason, the country in which your VPN is based and the location of the VPN server you’re using is incredibly important. We call this country the VPN jurisdiction.
Some jurisdictions have aggressive copyright laws and data retention laws, while some just block torrenting and piracy websites. Others take a much more relaxed approach.
Ideally, you should choose a VPN based in a country that does not legally require the collection of logs, and you should connect to a server in a country that doesn’t have legal penalties for torrenting.
In the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, downloading or sharing copyrighted content is illegal and often aggressively penalized. In this section, we’ll go through the copyright laws of each of these countries in more detail.
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United States
Downloading and sharing copyrighted material is illegal in the United States. There are two laws that affect torrenting and P2P activity in the US:
- The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which is aimed at sites hosting illegal torrents and uploaders of copyrighted works.
- The No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), which targets users downloading protected content.
American Internet Service Providers (ISP) monitor and store user download data for months, if not years. For example, Comcast holds it for at least six months while AT&T stores it for at least a year.
If you’re torrenting illegally, your ISP will send you a warning letter and probably start throttling your connection speeds.
US ISPs apply a three-warning rule to anyone caught torrenting copyrighted content before content owners start any legal proceedings. After this, anyone found guilty can risk up to five years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000.
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A copyright notice sent to a Comcast customer
Copyright trolls are also prevalent in the United States. These are third-parties (law firms) that set out to catch copyright violators on behalf of content owners. They can lurk in torrent swarms, even seeding files themselves as bait.
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United Kingdom
Torrenting copyrighted material is illegal in the United Kingdom. In 2010, the UK government passed the Digital Economy Act to help the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) curb illegal torrenting. The act was updated in 2017.
This law forces major UK ISPs to notify customers caught downloading torrents. The notification comes in the form of a cease and desist order. The legislation also gives UK ISPs the right to throttle speeds and even disconnect users from the internet altogether.
Over 2,000 domains are blocked by UK ISPs including many popular file-sharing sites like RARBG and YTS. You can find a comprehensive list of blocked domains here.
If you want to avoid downloading copyright-protected works, there are many sites with free and legal content available through the public domain or creative commons license.
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Australia
Downloading and sharing copyrighted material in Australia is illegal. The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill of 2018 allows ISPs to block torrenting sites classified as ‘pirate’ sites as well as any related mirror and proxy sites.
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An example of a DMCA claim sent to an Australian user
Many popular BitTorrent websites like ThePirateBay, Torrentz, and TorrentHound are therefore blocked. Overall, almost 1,000 file-sharing domains are blocked by ISPs like Telstra.
It’s unclear what the fines for illegal torrenting are, but a case in 2015 highlights the challenge faced by content owners in fining alleged illegal downloaders.
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Canada
Since January 2014, the Copyright Modernization Act has required Canadian ISPs like Bell to send notices to copyright violators using their services. Canadian ISPs are legally entitled to store download and upload data from violating subscribers for at least six months.
Copyright holders cannot sue copyright violators for more than CAD$5,000 (~$3,500) if copyrighted material is used for non-commercial purposes.
Canadian law also enables ISPs to throttle file-sharing speeds if a user is found to be torrenting.
Which Countries Block Torrenting Websites?
A recent study by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) estimates that at least 42 countries block over 4,000 piracy sites (over 8,000 actual domains) altogether.
Of the 42 countries, 31 are members of the European Union (EU) including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. It’s estimated over 5,300 torrenting domains are blocked in the EU.
Outside of the EU, Australia, South Korea, Mexico, and Thailand are some of the countries blocking file-sharing websites.
Some of the most popular pirate sites blocked are:
- 1337x (blocked in 8 countries)
- LimeTorrents (blocked in 6 countries)
- RARBG (blocked in 7 countries)
- ThePirateBay (blocked in 19 countries)
- Torrentz2 (blocked in 7 countries)
- YTS (blocked in 8 countries)
What’s the Safest Location for Torrenting & P2P Traffic?
When choosing a VPN server for torrenting it’s recommended you connect to a country that has explicit legal protections for P2P users. Alternatively, you should choose a country that has a relaxed approach to penalising copyright infringement.
Unfortunately most countries – most notably the US, UK and Australia – are very hostile to digital privacy and to P2P activity. You should avoid using VPN providers or VPN servers based in these countries.
However, there are exceptions. Here are a few of the safest locations in the world for torrenting:
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Switzerland
Swiss copyright law allows internet users to legally download all music and movies as long as it’s for personal use and not for profit. Monitoring of P2P downloads by third parties like your ISP is illegal, too.
In the past, Swiss ISPs weren’t even required to block access to pirating sites. This has changed recently, but torrenting of copyrighted material remains legal. For this reason, Switzerland has long been seen as one of the best countries in the world for torrenting.
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Spain
Copyright laws in Spain are slightly vague. Piracy sites are routinely blocked, but Spanish authorities have stated that torrenting files for personal use is legal. As long as the user isn’t making a profit from this activity, they’re not breaking the law.
Spanish judges have also stated that personal data linked to an IP address can only be disclosed as part of a criminal investigation or for public safety reasons.
You can see examples of copyright troll cases being thrown out of the Spanish courts within the last few years.
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Romania
Romania is a very safe country for torrenting privately and a good choice to connect to with your VPN.
Individuals and organisations running piracy sites have faced legal penalties in Romania, but individuals not making a profit are in a much stronger position.
Romania is the only European country to have successfully rejected the EU’s data retention laws. There is also a precedent in Romanian law that defines sharing copyrighted material as a victimless crime, which means legal action is rarely pursued if the individual is torrenting for personal use, rather than for a profit.
How to Torrent Safely With a VPN
Using a VPN for torrenting is actually very easy. However, you need to be 100% sure that your VPN is running before you open your torrent client – if you don’t then your true IP could be exposed. This is because torrent clients continue to seed files for other users even after they are fully downloaded.
For this reason you should always have your VPN on when torrenting, and make sure you completely stop your torrent client before turning the VPN off to guarantee your IP address does not become public.
You also need to trust the file you’re downloading. A VPN won’t stop you from downloading malicious content – the best way to make sure you get a safe file is to only download torrents from trusted sources with plenty of active peers and seeders. It’s also good practice to scan new files with security software like Windows Defender.
Here’s how to torrent safely with a VPN:
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Find a safe VPN that supports torrenting
You can choose from our list of the best VPNs for torrenting above, or find another service that meets the criteria for a torrent-friendly VPN.
Once you’re happy with your choice, sign up to the VPN service and download the software onto the device that you’re going to be using. For more detailed setup instructions, see our ‘How To Install a VPN’ guides.
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Check the privacy settings
Once you’ve downloaded the VPN software, launch the application on your device. At this stage, it’s important to check your security settings. Make sure the VPN kill switch is enabled so your IP address will be protected if the VPN connection drops.
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You can control security options from ExpressVPN’s advanced settings menu
If there are additional security features such as DNS leak protection, traffic obfuscation or multi-hop servers, enable them as you see fit.
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Select your preferred VPN server location
Once you’ve checked your settings, you’ll need to choose a server location. For torrenting purposes, you should generally connect to a VPN server as close as possible to your physical location to maximize your connection speeds.
If possible, try to avoid connecting to a VPN server in a country that is hostile to user privacy such as the US, UK, Canada, or Australia.
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Connect to the VPN server and launch your BitTorrent client
Finally, you can connect to the VPN server of your choice. Remember to do this before you launch your BitTorrent client otherwise you risk exposing your real IP address.
Our preferred torrenting client is qBittorrent, but you can also use other trusted clients, including Deluge, uTorrent, Vuze, and BitTorrent.
Is Port Forwarding Necessary for Torrenting?
Your router acts as a gateway between all of your devices and the internet. Every router has a NAT firewall built into it, which blocks unwanted traffic and determines which traffic is meant for which specific device.
The NAT firewall usually does this automatically, but port forwarding allows you to configure it manually. This means you can assign ports to certain functions or devices, which allows your router to create a direct connection between the device and the desired website.
Port forwarding as a VPN feature involves setting your VPN connection to flow through a specific port on your router, bypassing the NAT firewall. You will need to use it if you want to seed torrents effectively, because P2P activity is sometimes blocked by the NAT firewall to protect your device from malicious attacks.
You don’t need port forwarding to download a torrent file, but you will need it if you want to become a peer to help maintain the swarm. Certain torrenting clients also have trackers which will slow your download rate significantly if you don’t also seed.
Being able to seed is important for two reasons:
- Maintaining the torrent: a torrent swarm needs seeders to survive, and if no one seeds there simply won’t be torrents to download.
- Getting the best speeds: to maintain the swarm some torrents will penalise peers who do not seed, so boing a leech can negatively impact your experience.
While not all routers will block or slow P2P connections, it’s generally accepted that port forwarding will improve downloading speeds as the connections bypass the firewall.
Based on our extensive testing, we don’t think port forwarding is an absolute requirement for torrenting files when using a VPN, and some of the VPNs we have recommended in this list don’t offer it as a feature at all.
However, if you do want a VPN that includes port forwarding and allows you to seed, you can choose from the list below:
SOCKS5 Proxy for Torrenting
SOCKS is a connection protocol that sends packets between a web server and a device using a proxy server. The proxy server generates a random IP address before your traffic reaches its final destination. SOCKS5 is the most recent SOCKS protocol.
This type of proxy connection hides your IP address and uses a protocol designed to handle trackers and P2P connections, which makes it ideal for use while torrenting.
Many torrent clients including Bittorrent and uTorrent allow you to integrate your SOCKS5 proxy directly into the client.
While SOCKS5 proxy connections are fast and good for unblocking websites, they’re not ideal for privacy. They do not encrypt your traffic, which means your ISP can still monitor your browsing and identify your torrenting activity.
In short, SOCKS5 proxies have been a popular choice amongst torrenters for a long time, but they don’t offer the same protection as a full VPN.
It’s also important to avoid using an HTTP proxy when torrenting, which is the most common type of free proxy. HTTP proxies can only carry insecure HTTP traffic and can’t handle peer-to-peer connections.
Most torrent clients ignore HTTP proxy settings when connecting to peers, which means they will be able to see your true IP address.
Torrenting with Kodi
Many readers ask us what’s the difference between Kodi and torrenting.
On its own Kodi is just an open-source multi-platform media hub that allows you to play all your content in one place. But it is highly modifiable, and has an active community who develop add-ons which add all sorts of utility to the software – including some which add content which breaches copyright restrictions.
Many Kodi add-ons operate differently to BitTorrent technology: they use live-streams as opposed to downloading files. These won’t download or upload files onto your device (unless you actively opt in). Streaming does not hold as many risks as torrenting does as you are not actively sharing content or necessarily displaying your IP address publicly.
But not all Kodi add-ons work this way and without a VPN your ISP will still be able to monitor your activity.
Some Kodi add-ons rely on the BitTorrent protocol behind the scenes. This means they upload and download content to your device simultaneously – exposing your identity to all others in the swarm. You would absolutely need a VPN to use these add-ons anonymously.
If you’re looking to use Kodi streaming software, head over to our best VPNs for Kodi guide.
