Is a VPN necessary for torrenting?

I was brought up thinking I live in a central europe. The "heart of europe" they called it. Only once I realized that I torrent without a VPN without consequences, I accepted the fact that I'm eastern european AF.

I've always seen this as a question of risk. What you're asking is the digital equivalent to "Do I really need to wear my seatbelt when driving?"

You can drive around your car two hours a day, every day, without a seatbelt, and be fine for years. You can say you live in a calm neighborhood and say no one ever drives recklessly there. Everyone is still going to tell you to always wear your seatbelt.

You can be very careful about what you torrent. You could possibly torrent lots of things with no problems at all. All it takes is one person at one other endpoint grabbing your IP from one torrent and reporting, to cause a lot of problems.

It's up to you if you want to take that risk, but when you're asking for advice no one is ever going to tell you that you don't need one, and if they are they're probably giving bad advice. There are enough horror stories that many don't think it's worth the risk.

I live in 3rd world country where the government doesn't care much about torrent/piracy too. So far there's no problem.

I guess it depends more on the country you live. If nobody is using VPN, you will probably be fine.

@Alextheacceptable In Germany, there are lawyers specialised on torrents. They collect German IPs from the peers list and mass-sue them over distributing copyrighted material. They always ask for a settlement payment of more than 5000€. It can usually be escaped by taking it to court, but I recommend not going through that.

So, depends on your location. Over here, download one movie without a VPN and you have a shit ton of legal crap coming your way.

Alternatively if price is an issue (NEVER use a “free” VPN) you could torrent over I2P, which is free and very safe (at least as safe as tor, if not moreso).

Also the next release of qbittorrent is about to have built in I2P support (but also standard I2P comes with its own torrenting software).

Do you live in a country where the authorities are taking action against torrenting? Yes, you should absolutely be using a VPN, because otherwise you're presenting your identity on a silver platter.

Do you live in a country where the authorities don't give a fuck? Then no, a VPN won't be necessary.

You don't technically need a VPN for torrenting, but unless you live in a country that is known to not care about piracy, then you should use one.

That ultimately depends on what jurisdiction you're in and what laws apply. It varies wildly country to country.

They don’t seem to care, but they collect data. So they don’t seem to care NOW. Always use a non-logging VPN.

Yes, you need some way to hide your IP when torrenting in the US unless your ISP doesn't care about copyright letters. If you don't want to use a VPN, a debrid service or I2P are other options as well that can hide torrents from your isp. Another option is to not torrent and stick to ddl and streaming

I've been torrenting in the US for a decade and a half without a VPN, including as a kid on my parents network LOL, and only got warnings, maybe once every couple years. Tons of copyrighted materials. ATT then Charter, YMMV.

use I2P

I can only give my experience. I live in the US and thought my ISP didn’t care, but when I got nasty letters about me torrenting Rick and Morty, I started using a VPN.

If you live in third world country then you definitely don't need one.

I live in India and here nobody cares what you do or download. I only use a VPN to access blocked sites.

In France it is not very necessary, the hadopi will send you warnings. You need to stop at least 6 month after you receive a mail warning.

Then you are good to go.

I use stremio for ages without any problems.

Still i recommend vpn usage for torrents. You can share accounts with multiple persons to lower the price.

If your ISP doesn't care then you are good.

What I've learned overtime is high profile things like movie releases will see a nice email from your ISP. Anime relating thing that are under the radar won't have much trouble. A little risky, but that what I've learned on that side.

A VPN is not necessary for torrent usage.

But if you live in a country that enforces copy right etc online, it's highly recommended, as a VPN will make it almost impossible to track you down.

A VPN is like a costume. You don't need to wear one to do something illegal, but wearing one will make it much harder for authorities to identify you.

I think it depends on the country. In the US, ISPs tend to be fairly strict so using a VPN is necessary (at least with Comcast). After 6-7 DMCAs, I've heard of people getting their accounts and service terminated. Best to use one and not take the chance with them. With 3rd world countries, most ISPs don't care about DMCAs so I can see there not being a need to use one in those situations.

In the UK, torrent sites are blocked by the ISPs, so you would need a VPN to access the sites.

My country only sees an issue if I'm producing and sitributing pirated content and is really behind on digital laws, and mostly they dont give a fuck. In universities they encourage you to pirate books even show you how, especially with scientific papers and stuff, back when playstation games where only physical there where whole stores dedicated to selling pirated games. Latin america I guess. But on top of that VPNs are freaking expensive. Depends on your situation thou

It depends very much on the copyright laws on where you live. You said you don't live in the US, which already makes you better off than a lot of people here -However, Europe also has very strict © laws. So it is always recommended.

Yes, it is really that dangerous. People recommended VPNs for a reason. Whether you personally are realistically at risk is an unknown - relatively few people are actually the targets of anti-piracy action. As others have pointed out, copyright trolls generally operate in specific countries and regions.

Still, I would never recommended engaging in copyright infringement without some form of protection. I understand you are poor but it really is a silly risk to take. The way almost all pirates get caught, at least from what I've seen, is through stupidity or complacency (one could argue they are the same thing). This is why the megathread tries to recommended best practice wherever possible.

Wow times have changed for sure. This thread convinced me to get a VPN of some kind at least

I find that most VPNs are so heavily shilled that by that very nature, makes them suspect. Since the days of Napster, WinMX, Bearshare and the like, I've gotten exactly 2 "Hey, knock it off" letters from my ISP. And they were both from new-release, mouse-affiliated movie releases from a public tracker.

Get in with some of the private trackers and 99.9% of the worry disappears. Try not to upload terabytes of data, and the majority of ISPs (I mean, two of the 3 that seem to have the monopolies at least) wont even bother sending the notices.

Last time i did this, i got a nice email from my isp giving me a warning that they may turn off my internet.

i live in ny and i have gotten letters from spectrum in the past. havent gotten one since i went vpn (referral?) and seedbox. im not torrenting, as i am logging into the seeedbox (referral?) via ftp and transferring the files over that way. so far so good.

Pedantically, it's not required, but it's probably a good idea to make your life easier.

yes. sorry. it's cheaper then buying countless games and software, whatever you use it for. think of it as getting a massive discount on things you'd have been forced to buy otherwise. overtime, you'd spend thousands of dollars in games, etc. VPN monthly cost is a small price to pay comparibly

American here, I've torrented movies and anime for a few years now and only got one warning (For downloading "The Big Short" of of Pirate bay). I have since stopped seeding on that site, though a seed on smaller ones. I have had no issues with lawyers since.

I personally wouldn't take the chance. Mullvad is €5 a month, and is worth it to me. My ISP completely shut off my service before ever giving me a notification. I had to completely restart service after going full Karen and blaming it on "my kids." I would do a few searches and find posts or info relevant to your area or ISP.

For a private tracker no, for public trackers it depends on your country. Some countries the worst you might get is an email or letter in the mail, other countries you will be sued. I even use a VPN for private trackers, let alone public trackers.

I would recommend using a VPN.

Personally I just have a Real-Debrid sub for like 3 euros a month and do any torrenting via them.

Also useful for streaming just about anything in Kodi, and for downloading from file hosts

VPN that I use is about 50USD for a two year cycle, pretty cheap if you commit for a while. Even beyond torrents just not letting your ISP scoop up all your browsing data is worth the price.

VPNs are only really necessary if you use public trackers. Private trackers are generally viewed as small enough and not worth the bother by copyright holders to pursue. Like someone else said earlier, it’s a matter of risk. I tend to view private trackers, especially those seen as “elite” and difficult to enter as being very safe.

worst that can happen is your ISP sends you a letter to stop, then get a VPN.

What if i have self-hosted vpn? am i safe now? (wireguard)

Just an FYI: for the cost of a VPN, you can buy a Usenet subscription. Depending on your content, you'll get far better speeds, far more privacy, far more content, and far more availability.

Not necessary but really really really really recommended.

There are a lot of self-hostable VPN services out there which are free. There is also Mullvad as previously mentioned and I myself use Nord (I don't necessarily recommend it for privacy, but it was convenient when I got it).

Why not get a seedbox? Most come with Plex and Jellyfin so you can stream the content of the seedbox. Also they generally provide VPNs.

I recommend the free version of VPN of hide.me. I didn't want to pay for VPN and that has worked well for me. Speed is limited after 10gb

It really depends on how likely you are going to be caught and what the consequences are. Your ISP may not care but copyright holders generally band together and have legal set ups in most countries both trying to take down servers and end users, lobby for legal changes including trying to criminalise copy right infingement.

Generally a trustworthy VPN is a very good idea not just for torrenting but for maintaining privacy and security when you are doing other things such as banking, or even just browsing. A VPN is about protecting all your data and internet traffic, not just protecting you when torrenting.

In terms of Torrenting, a Proxy may be enough and a lot of the best VPN providers do provide Proxy servers (that anonymise the detail of your Torrenting use but the rest of your computer use would be on the open internet) in addition to full VPN connections that secure your whole PC for P2P and non-P2P uses.

If a VPN seems too expensive, then there are companies that also only provide Proxy connecftions. BTGuard.com is an example; the Proxy only option is 30% cheaper than the full VPN option.

EDIT: Note though, a VPN is about anonymity. You need to trust your VPN provider as you're passing your data through them, and it is not a substitue for secure practices on the internet. You still need to be secure on the internet including only downloadling from trustworthy locations, using antivirus and malware protection, not installing software from insecure places, using HTTPS and securing your internet browser, turning on tracking protection & ad blocking, and even considering using virtualisation to protect yourself even more.

You are fine without a VPN until you aren't anymore. Torrenting was fine in basically every country until it wasn't anymore. And then some people got burned without a warning.
So you can roll the dice, it might take years until people start caring in your country and you are fine until then. Or they might start caring in a few months. If you aren't, there is a chance you will have time to react to the news when other people first get hit in your country or you will be one of the first. If you are already using a VPN you can rest assured that you won't be one of the first.

Look, if you want peace of mind use it, but it is also true that you will most likely be fine with it.

I personally use NordVPN, and I have been always torrenting with pretty good speed. I am pretty sure there are cheaper alternatives.

Good luck to You. :⁠-⁠)

YMMV but I never got into trouble for torrenting.

Bell Aliant in NS, Canada.

Not necessary for torrenting per se, but can be necessary to avoid fees depending on the country where your IP is located.

You're probably fine, but I recommend just getting a free VPN to keep your ISP at bay. I don't like Proton, but they do have a free VPN. Google around and you can find some others too, if that one is too slow

It (possibly) adds a layer of security. Of course you're just passing your traffic through them. Should they get summoned to court or ordered they could turn over your information and show you were trafficking through them. I'd say to read into how your nation persecutes copyright. How strict are they, how often have people been legally attacked cause of it, etc. If you're in Japan for example, I'd say 100% use a VPN. Copyright is extremely serious there.

Look into a seedbox. They can be had for very cheap in some places and then you're not torrenting anything at all to your local network, you're just transferring everything over an encrypted ftp connection. I use whatbox and absolutely love it. I'm sure there are cheaper options though.