Is qBittorrent Safe?

qBittorrent has a reputation for being a safe, reliable application, and our research has confirmed this. In fact, qBittorrent is the safest torrent client available at the moment.

This doesn’t mean that it comes without some drawbacks, though. Here is a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the client:

PROS	CONS
Open-source software No bundled bloatware or malware No adverts Integrated proxy support Advanced security settings Active community	Your ip address can be exposed during torrenting Torrents can contain malware

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of what makes qBittorrent safe to use:

1. Open-source software

qBittorrent is open-source, which means that anyone can inspect its source code for bugs or malicious content. As such a popular client, it really does get looked over again and again by programmers all over the world.

When bugs emerge they are fixed quickly, and if there were any significant vulnerabilities or malicious code they would have been identified.

2. No bundled bloatware or malware

As long as you download it from the official source, qBittorrent doesn’t come with any other bundled software.

This means you don’t have to worry about accidentally downloading annoying or even harmful programs and is a great start for building trust in the software.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with some competing torrenting clients.

3. No Adverts

The client doesn’t have any ads, which obviously makes for a good user experience. But it also means that it is more secure and private, with no closed-source third-party code or ad trackers.

Fewer components in the client also leaves less opportunity for vulnerabilities or security issues.

4. Integrated proxy support

While we prefer VPNs, qBittorrent has in-client support for SOCKS5 proxies, which are a popular way to keep IP addresses from leaking during torrenting. A SOCKS5 proxy works similarly to a VPN to reroute your traffic and obscure your true IP address from other users.

The client also supports HTTP proxies but they are insecure and unreliable, and we don’t recommend using them.

5. Advanced security settings

qBittorrent includes advanced tools to help keep your true IP address from leaking with a VPN or proxy. The first is network interface filtering, which allows you to select a specific network adapter to torrent over. The second is IP binding, which allows you to select a single IP address for the client to torrent from.

If your proxy or VPN connection drops, these features will prevent the client from torrenting. We’ve tested these features and have found they are both effective ways to keep your ip address from leaking with a proxy or VPN.

6. Active community

qBittorrent is well supported and actively updated by a global group of volunteer developers, led by a contributor called Sledgehammer999. This means that any bugs can be identified and fixed quickly. On top of this, there are no known serious bugs or exploits associated with the app.

This also means that it is very easy to get help from other users on the qBittorrent forums if you ever encounter any issues with security or performance.

Advanced Features Test Results

qBittorrent comes with several advanced features which greatly improve the safety of your IP address while torrenting, most notably: network interface filtering and ip binding.

We’ve tested both these features to make sure they work as advertised and prevent the client from torrenting (and leaking your true IP) if your VPN connection cuts out.

Network Interface Filtering

First we tested network interface filtering with the following method:

1. 1. We connected to a local VPN server
   2. We selected the TAP adapter for our VPN in the network interface setting

1. We started torrenting our test file in qBittorrent
2. Once the torrent was in progress, we disconnected the VPN
3. After a few minutes we reconnected the VPN

IP Binding

Next we tested IP binding, following this method:

1. 1. We connected to a local VPN server
   2. We selected our VPN’s IP address from the “Optional IP address to bind to” setting

1. We started torrenting our test file
2. Once the torrent was in progress, we disconnected the VPN
3. After a few minutes we reconnected the VPN

Malware Test Results

In order to determine that qBittorrent is safe to download and use, we scanned the app with Malwarebytes.

This is unsurprising. qBittorrent is a popular app and it would be known if it contained malware. The bigger risk is that torrent files you download could contain malware.

Because of this, we recommend you run antivirus software yourself while torrenting to make sure no torrent files you download are dangerous or include dangerous content.

Why Has My Antivirus Blocked qBittorrent?

It is possible that your antivirus software will flag qBittorrent itself as a potential issue. If this occurs, it is most likely that your client has connected to servers which are known to house malicious content.

This can happen because P2P file sharing involves connecting your client to lots of other peers. As long as the torrent file or magnet link you are using is trustworthy, though, it shouldn’t be an actual risk as the tracker co-ordinates the download between multiple peers.

As such, these alerts are generally false alarms, but they should be taken as a reminder to only download torrents from trustworthy sources.

Using the IP filter feature (found under Tools > Options > Connection) with an IP blacklist is a good way to mitigate the risk of downloading dangerous or unwanted files, and prevent these kinds of alerts from occurring.

Alongside qBittorrent, uTorrent is one of the most widely used torrent clients. We don’t recommend using it though.

By almost all criteria qBittorrent is a safer torrent client than uTorrent.

Here is a comparison of qBittorrent and uTorrent from the perspective of safety:

	Advert Free	Open-Source	Bundled Bloatware	Support Forums	Proxy Support	IP Binding	IP Filtering	Port Forwarding	Platforms
qBittorrent	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Windows, Mac, Linux
uTorrent	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Windows, Mac, Linux, Andorid
Winner	qBittorrent	qBittorrent	qBittorrent	Tie	Tie	Tie	Tie	Tie	uTorrent

Both clients come with lots of useful advanced features for protecting your anonymity, but uTorrent falls behind in three key areas.

We ran a series of tests to find out if utorrent is safe.

On Windows, Mac and Android uTorrent is sadly full of third-party adverts. These are intrusive and frustrating, as well as representing a potential privacy risk. By comparison, qBittorrent is totally ad-free.

uTorrent also comes bundled with bloatware, which you have to uninstall manually after download. When we tested uTorrent, it installed multiple applications onto our test laptop without our consent.

In the past, some of the bundled software has been considered dangerous malware (although as of writing that isn’t the case).

Lastly, uTorrent isn’t open-source, unlike qBittorrent. This means it lacks transparency, is less thoroughly tested by users, and is run to make a profit at the expense of its users.

uTorrent was once a very good piece of software, but has been let down by closed-source development, adware, and bugs.

The only benefit of uTorrent is that you don’t need to download it off of a third-party website, but this isn’t an issue if you download qBittorrent from a reliable source.

There are holdouts who will insist on using old versions of uTorrent (2.2.1 and older), before the introduction of ads. There are security risks in doing so, so we recommend using the latest version of qBittorrent, instead.

Our tests found qBittorrent is mostly safe, but we also found that it comes with two key dangers:

• Exposing your IP address while torrenting
• Accidentally torrenting malware or unwanted files

The two most important things you can do to make qBittorrent safer are to use a trustworthy VPN, like ExpressVPN, and run anti-virus software. It’s also important to configure your qBittorrent client correctly and access safe torrenting sites.

How to Configure qBittorrent for Safe Torrenting

Configuring qBittorrent is the simplest thing you can do to make it safer. Some small changes can mean the difference between accidentally giving your IP address away or not.

Use Antivirus Software

One of the risks of qBittorrent (or any other torrent client) is that you can accidentally download malware while torrenting.

The best way to reduce the risk of downloading a malicious file is to get a reliable antivirus program to detect malware before you download it.

Thankfully, you don’t have to pay to get a good antivirus.

• For Windows we recommend Microsoft Defender, Avira Free Antivirus or Malwarebytes.
• For Mac users we recommend Malwarebytes.
• For Android we recommend Malwarebytes or Sophos Intercept X.

It’s equally important you don’t open files if they aren’t what you expect, as they could be malware.

For instance, if you think you’re torrenting a film, but you download an .exe file, delete it without opening. It’s most likely a malicious file.

Use a Secure and Private VPN

The best way to protect your anonymity while torrenting is to use a safe torrenting VPN.

There are both free and premium VPNs that offer the above features.

However, premium VPNs are faster and don’t have the limiting data caps most free VPNs impose.

Our ExpressVPN tests reveal it’s the most dependable torrenting VPN currently available.

ExpressVPN delivers fast torrent speeds on diskless no-logs servers. The VPN doesn’t suffer from IP leaks, and its kill switch works flawlessly to prevent IP exposures during VPN connection failures.

Another good P2P VPN is Private Internet Access. Although torrent speeds aren’t as fast as ExpressVPN’s, the service is no-logs, has built-in IP leak prevention and a working kill switch.

These requirements are hugely important for a VPN when torrenting. For example, we do not recommend Avast SecureLine for torrenting as the company has a history of reconstructing browsing behavior and abusing customer privacy.

Is It Safe to Use qBittorrent without a VPN?

A VPN isn’t the only way to protect your true IP address when using qBittorrent, but it is the safest.

If you don’t want to use a VPN, you can use a proxy service as an alternative, but you should never torrent without either.

While proxies don’t come with a kill switch, qBittorrent has two features that serve a similar function: network interface filtering and IP binding.

These two features allow you to only torrent via one network adapter or IP address, and help to prevent IP leaks.

The biggest safety downside of proxies compared to VPNs is that they don’t encrypt internet traffic.

As such, proxies are less secure than VPNs, and allow both your ISP and network administrator to see that you’re torrenting files. They won’t know what you’re torrenting, though.

Some VPNs allow you to use qBittorrent’s built-in support for the SOCKS5 proxy on top of a VPN. For example, you can natively set up a SOCKS5 proxy for torrenting with Windscribe. However, it doesn’t provide much extra protection and will potentially slow your speeds further.

qBittorrent is a 100% legal piece of free and open-source software, available under a GNU General Public License. This means you can own, use, distribute, and even edit the software legally. (The only thing you can’t do is sell it!)

While using qBittorrent is totally legal, using it to break the law isn’t. For instance, downloading or sharing illegal or copyrighted material using qBittorrent is illegal.

Because torrenting requires both seeding (uploading) and leeching (downloading) it generally counts as sharing copyrighted material, rather than just downloading it. If you’re caught torrenting copyrighted material you could potentially face large fines.