Torrenting has become a hugely popular means of downloading the most recent movies, TV series, music, games, and many other forms of content.
Torrenting popularity is primarily fueled by the fact that it’s free. A computer with an Internet connection is all that is required to download and exchange files!
Other than that, there are several important issues related to torrenting, for example, is torrenting legal, is it safe, are you likely to be caught and many more.
With this guide, you will find out all you need to know about torrenting. You will also find which is the best VPNs for torrenting to use to keep you safe and your identity hidden.
- ExpressVPN – Continually delivers the best all-round VPN speeds and features for torrenting and P2P file sharing.
- NordVPN – Ranks as one of the most secure VPN’s on the market to keep your identity hidden when downloading torrents.
- Surfshark – A newcomer to the market, but offers unlimited bandwidth and unlimited connections for downloading with VPN use.
- IPVanish – Very secure while delivering great speeds, and allows torrenting on all its servers.
- Cyberghost – A feature-packed VPN, which makes thttps://www.hobsoft.com/go/surfsharkbestvpntorrentingorrenting easy and safe for new users using a one-click approach.
Is Torrenting safe with a VPN?
When you use a BitTorrent client, your IP address is exposed inside a torrent swarm. Even a person downloading a torrent file from you can see your IP address.
Once you use one of the best VPN services for torrenting, then the client takes your IP address and masks it through encryption. Even though you connect via your ISP, they are unable to see what you access.
This delivers you complete private internet access to do whatever you wish. Because your connection travels along an encrypted tunnel, it cannot be seen or nor can it be traced back to your location or device.
Which is the Best VPN for Torrenting?
1. ExpressVPN
| Website | https://www.expressvpn.com |
| Price | $10.79 |
| Refund | 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Servers | 3,000+ |
| Location | The British Virgin Islands |
| Logging | Zero-logging |
Pros
Cons
ExpressVPN takes the top spot as the best and fastest VPN for torrenting, with high download speeds, 256-bit AES military-grade encryption, and perfect forward secrecy. It covers 94 different countries and the plug and play option guarantees security and anonymity for your torrenting.
ExpressVPN has zero traffic logs, and since it is based in the BVI, you don’t have to worry about retention laws.
The applications come with a kill switch to protect your IP in the event of a connection loss, and they support P2P file sharing on all servers. Client applications are available for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and some Wi-Fi routers where you can enable port forwarding.
Besides Torrenting, ExpressVPN is the best un-blocker of geo-restricted streaming services like Netflix, iPlayer, Hulu, Prime Video and HBO Max.
Read our Full ExpressVPN Review
2. NordVPN
| Website | https://nordvpn.com/ |
| Price | $11.95 |
| Refund | 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Servers | 5,100 |
| Location | Panama |
| Logging | Zero-logging |
Pros
Cons
The speeds are high, although some servers may be slow depending on location and server load. It offers excellent protection against DNS leaks and two kill switches, one for applications and one system-wide. With these, you can ensure that your BitTorrent client doesn’t leak your IP while you continue with the rest of your business.
Nord VPN service uses many shared IP addresses to keep you hidden, and the bandwidth is unlimited. There are torrenting-specific servers, as well as streaming-focused servers along with the proxy to get the best speeds for movies.
It does a good job sharing geo-locked streaming platforms like Netflix US, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.
You can use up to 6 simultaneous connections on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android as well as some port forwarding routers.
3. Surfshark
| Website | https://surfshark.com/ |
| Price | $11.95 |
| Refund | 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Servers | 1,700+ |
| Location | The British Virgin Islands |
| Logging | Zero-logging |
Pros
Cons
Surfshark VPN service offers one of the best VPN torrenting options with good download speeds, and its network covers more than 60 countries.
You have private internet access thanks to IKEv2 and 256-bit AES encryption. It provides a kill switch, perfect forward secrecy and DNS, IPv6 and WebRTC leaks.
You can use split tunneling, so you can send your torrents in one direction while using your regular connection for something else.
This VPN is located in the British Virgin Islands, where there are no data retention laws. Apart from that, they stick to their zero protocol policy. They allow P2P traffic across all servers with unlimited bandwidth.
Surfshark has applications for Linux, iOS, Android, Windows and macOS, and routers with port forwarding. You also have unlimited simultaneous connections. You can also use adblocker and malware prevention for more security.
Read our Full Surfshark Review
4. IPVanish
| Website | https://www.ipvanish.com/ |
| Price | $10.00 |
| Refund | 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Servers | 1,400+ |
| Location | USA |
| Logging | Zero-logs |
Pros
Cons
IPVanish takes user privacy exceptionally seriously and was developed with Torrenting in mind, making it one of the most popular VPNs in the world. It stores zero logs for troubleshooting, as some others often do.
You can choose between L2TP and OpenVPN protocols, both of which use standard bank-grade 256-bit encryption. IPVanish uses shared IP addresses and provides IP switching at regular intervals. It falls over during streaming because it can’t get past the blocks of Hulu and Netflix.
The speeds are excellent and with unlimited bandwidth. The VPN identifies certain regions as P2P-friendly.
You can activate the kill switch to stop IP leaks. IPVanish is popular with Kodi users because of the resource usage on the Android app. You can also find applications for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android with ten simultaneous connections.
5. Cyberghost
| Website | https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/en_US/ |
| Price | $12.99 |
| Refund | 14-day money-back guarantee |
| Servers | 6,400 |
| Location | Romania |
| Logging | No Logs |
Pros
Cons
Romania-based CyberGhost enables users to exchange P2P files on any server not located in Russia or the USA.
CyberGhost isn’t against torrenting since you can select the “Torrent Anonymously” profile in the application, which connects to the best available torrenting VPN server.
CyberGhost complies with the “No Logs” policy, employs 256-bit AES encryption, and works with perfect forward secrecy.
You can use a kill switch on the desktop clients, and find one buried in the settings for applications.
CyberGhost scores well in speed tests thanks to its massive server network and can unlock US Netflix and Prime Video, among others.
You can find applications for Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and Android on seven simultaneous connections. It also has a decent 24/7 live chat option in case of problems when using the VPN for downloading.
Read our Full Cyberghost Review
Which Free VPN is best for Torrenting?
1. Tunnelbear
| Website | https://www.tunnelbear.com/ |
| Price | Free |
| Refund | No money-back guarantee |
| Servers | 23 |
| Location | Canada |
| Logging | No Logs |
Pros
Cons
Read our Full Tunnelbear Review
2. Hide.me
| Website | https://hide.me/en/ |
| Price | Free |
| Refund | No money-back guarantee |
| Servers | 5 |
| Location | Malaysia |
| Logging | No Logs |
Pros
Cons
How to Torrent Safely
Before you download with VPN, you do need to do so in a safe manner and protect your private internet access.
Using a premium VPN is the first step, and the one you choose should be in a location outside any 14-eyes jurisdiction.
Also, make sure you use the full client app and not the browser extensions that are on offer.
- With your VPN running, you need to check your settings. The best torrent VPN won’t offer PPTP protocol, but it is worth checking. In the settings, you will find the protocol in use. OpenVPN or IKEv2 are the preferred choices.
- Also, make sure your kill switch is enabled. If you lose your VPN connection, your IP address can leak. It takes a second or two before your data is recorded and your ISP can see what you are accessing.
- You can also check leak protection on various websites, so you can see if you are using a secure VPN.
Depending on your VPN service, you may have the choice of letting the client choose the location. If not, start your client and then select a country outside your own. The best speeds may be the closest server, yet if the torrent site is blocked, you will need to change the location.
You can also set a port forwarding option if you install your VPN on your home router. This can increase speeds of your downloads, this option may not be easy to use for some users.
Once you have your VPN running, you can search for your favorite torrent site and begin downloading your movies or TV shows, and allow torrenting to start.
Read our Online Privacy Guide
Is Free VPNs Safe for Torrenting?
If you are looking at one of the very free VPN’s, aside from the likes of the above, then you may find they are not as safe as they make out. Besides this, there are plenty of free offerings, which won’t support torrenting on their network.
When it comes to security, there are some things to be aware of when using a free VPN for anything. Many of these VPN services harvest your activities to sell data to third parties, or they bombard you with targeted ads themselves.
Other free VPN providers are known not to stop any viruses or malware across their networks. This means users are more at risk than ever before.
You can have reduced speed and data cap instead of unlimited data. Finally, a free VPN provider may use the same IP address for different users so that you can be under threat from their activities unknowingly. Even worse, they can let other users use your IP address.
FAQs
Is Torrenting Legal?
Torrenting is the fastest method of distributing files across the internet. In its operation, the act downloading a torrent file is essentially legal.
Nevertheless, things change when you begin sharing or downloading unauthorized, copyrighted material. With this, it places torrent files, the individuals who offer the services and users who access them in a bit of a gray area.
Due to the difficulty of determining the legality of files users share, a number of countries automatically decide to make torrenting, illegal.
While you can use torrents to download legal materials, users are tarred with the same brush as those who are downloading illegal copyrighted content. As a result, the implications of exploiting torrents wherever they deem these practices illegal can vary.
For example, the penalties can include both fines and imprisonment. Still, sometimes, where the use of torrents is legal, you may again face charges of piracy when using them to access copyrighted material.
While it is not right to condone the actions of downloading copyrighted material, users do have the right to know accurate information about the subject. Here is a bit more information about how individual countries stand on the issue of torrenting.
United States
In the US, they claim that torrenting for personal use isn’t illegal. However, any caught offenders can be subject to a lawsuit from the owner of the content.
The number of copyright trolls s on the increase, and citizens can face significant fines for every work they infringe.
It is best to be safe from the copyright trolls who have the duty of imposing legal costs and out of court fines to individuals found to be infringing copyrights.
United Kingdom
It is now a criminal offence for copyright infringement. It can come with a possible unlimited fine, and imprisonment for up to 10-years. However, this is dependent on the extent of the pirating in question.
While this is for larger-scale pirates, and as of yet, there are no small users of torrents facing such a conviction, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
UK ISP’s are now among the top companies for blocking access to torrent sites and free streaming sites in the world. From this comes a significant amount of internet censorship.
Australia
Australia is among one of the many countries that block access to various torrent sites. They manage this by imposing rules onto the ISP’s, who then have an agreed amount of time to enforce this.
The Copyright Amendment Bill of 2015, which was passed in 2018, allows rights owners to prove that ISP’s are allowing access to overseas hosting sites among other stipulation.
With this, search engines were held as responsible as ISP’s, and who have to remove links leading to such torrenting sites. While single users are not often targeted, they have been before and could be again in the future.
Canada
Canada has the Copyright Modernization Act. While like other countries, torrenting itself isn’t illegal, and you can share all your digital content if it doesn’t fall under a copyright protected umbrella.
There is little mention if the country bans P2P networks and torrent apps, although it will depend on the content you wish to download, and if you are seeding (sharing), or uploading your content.
To make things muddier, Canada allows the provinces to impose their laws and legalities. One thing that is across the nation is the amendment to the Copyright Modernization Act in 2015. ISP now has to notify any users they think is carrying out any illegal or dubious activity.
New Zealand
Again, torrenting itself can be legal, although, since 2011, the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act came into effect.
In this, the Right owners can enforce rights against individuals who are using file-sharing applications and networks that illegally make available copyright covered works across the internet.
The law covers the following:
- Downloading & uploading of copyright works illegally (digital works)
- Peer-to-peer sharing (of copyrighted material). It includes any works stored in a shared folder, which users can access
- Posting of copyright-protected works to sites, and enabling other users to download them
Other Countries
You can see a difference with many countries around the world. Africa, for instance, has Egypt, which overlooks torrenting, while South Africa will shut down or block access to torrenting sites. The remainder of the country is a bit of a blank.
China and Russia don’t allow any access, and then you have South America that overlooks the practice.
A handful of countries, which were often thought as safe, do have a different view on matters. The Netherlands was often though as torrent-friendly, yet pirates can face up to 4-years in prison and significant fines.
There are disputes, yet BRIEN (anti-piracy) pushed enough to get The Pirate Bay Blocked. Switzerland has mixed results. You can download music and video, and share it with a close group; yet uploading to the internet is illegal.
Spain is very pro-copyright holders, although often thought a haven for torrenting. It does come with mandatory data retention laws of 12-months, so spotting pirates is easier.
Sweden is among one country; there is no clear answer. While it was here the admin of The PB was jailed, there hasn’t been much more of a clampdown.
What’s the bottom line?
Even if you don’t take part in downloading torrents, you can see from the restrictions in place from each country, that there is plenty of censorship taking place.
However, any torrenters should use a VPN when downloading any files. Not only does it bypass any blocks or restrictions, but also keeps you safe from ISPs, data retention and the copyright trolls that don’t care who they take down to get what they think is their right.
There is no other way you can torrent, or to achieve outright private internet connections than using a VPN.
With the five above, you have the very best torrenting VPN you can find, no matter on your skill level. Any of these will keep you anonymous and away from prying eyes.
