Is it possible to safely torrent without a VPN?
Is it possible to safely torrent without a VPN?
Funds are limited at the moment and i'd rather not have a monthly subscription to worry about.
i'm not in the US, if that changes anything
I2P has a built in torrent client.
But you need a computer running 24/7. With i2p, the longer your session runs, the better the connection.
Maybe I am dumb, but I can’t find anything on i2p. And all the sites load incredibly slowly…
Postman tracker is the main one on i2p.
And the longer your i2p runs, the faster its connection.
For grabbing a torrent anonymously, there is nothing better.
Tribbler has a similar idea, but as they state in their website nothing has actually been tested against a motivated hacker earning big bucks from Hollywood. And their default settings just expose your ip address.
Depends on country. Depends on ISP. Look for how your ISP reponds to such things. Should be able to find info on that, I'd hope.
what keywords should i look out for? searching my ISP and "Piracy" makes is seem like they're pretty active about this stuff
check if you can find customers who have reported receiving notices in the mail or actions taken on their customer accounts. try to find out what the penalties for violating their policy is.
if they are pretty active, you might be stuck resorting to encrypting all of your traffic, aka a vpn
with that vpn and some minor setup in your torrent client you can avoid all of this. for example in qbittorrent there is an option to "bind to interface" and you set it to bind to your vpn interface, so if the vpn goes down all your torrent traffic shuts down.
i use nord, haven't had a single issue in years, and i have received notices at multiple addresses in the past. thus.. had to get vpn if i wanted to continue safely 😞
Probably gotta head into the terms of services and Privacist policy they have.
Depends on the country. I once got some people in trouble when I passed through Germany because I didn't know internet is heavily censored/surveilled there. Haven't had trouble anywhere else though. Do some research on your country.
The biggest threats come from the movie industry. Just use streaming sites for movies and series, torrent the other stuff.
Look into Tribler, I2P and Utopia.
There are very few countries where torrenting is safe. Generally speaking: No. You can try file hosters or other platforms, or share a VPN with a friend or use services similar to a VPN. AFAIK there is not alternative that's as fast and convenient as Torrent, though.
third world? yes. Europe or US? no
It's just Germany, the rest of Europe (EU and non-EU) doesn't actively care about them unless it's cp.
Eastern Europe would be a yes. I know Germany is super anal about copyright but dunno about the rest of the EU.
At worst they will log it and could build a case against you.
No need to not be paranoid.
I use it in croatia, but its so funny here since no one really cares. people around me torrent on daily basis for 20ish years and nobody got ISP letter. Even friends are laughing because I spend money on that lol. Its only 5€ a month and I use it for other things as well. Just get it if you can or 🤞
Look I2P. Don't know for sure. But read somewhere that it can be used for privacy.
Slow, limited options, but great anonymity and free.
Sounds interesting, what are some good beginner guides to I2P?
A good start would be to check the website and go from there. I don't know of a good, singular guide unfortunately—there are a couple different ways of going about torrenting on I2P.
I can confirm that torrenting on I2P works quite well! You may have to set aside a couple weeks per movie, though. Still, the torrent selection is decent, if not quite as good as what you would get on the clearnet. You'll want to check the postman tracker (tracker2.postman.i2p) once you have everything set up.
Private trackers.
And the more exclusive the private tracker the safer you are
I wouldn't rely on that being mole free. Check your tracker's rules before using a VPN. They might require a static IP.
Look for news in your country about people getting into bad situations for this. Ask in local forums etc
Do you have any access to internet services without registering with your name?
Maybe at public transportation, in a mall... Please don't bring trouble to any small businesses.
Be prepared to find usual ports blocked and research on how to randomize your MAC address.
I use a private tracker and never get any mentions from my ISP because the studios aren't on the private trackers to search for IPs because they don't get invited and also would get banned for not seeding.
I made the mistake of using a public tracker to download something I couldn't find on my private tracker and got forwarded a DMCA notice the next day by my ISP.
To answer your question in short , is it safely possible? No.
From your replies it seems your ISP is active against piracy. If budget is tight I recommend, use seedr.cc it gives you 2gb free and it torrents on your behalf, so you're legally safe. Also you can extend seedr.cc to 4gb as WELL without paying. Dm me if you want to know how.
I know it's not enough for big games and stuff, but most TV shows and movies you can find decent 1080p rips within that.
Anything else will require some investment/cost.
I want to add to this, if you want to stream from seedr, don't use their streaming option. instead, right click on download button, copy link, then paste in VLC.
Agreed, also the .part file can be played in VLC as well, it's the same thing as copy pasting the link in VLC though, but this way you can keep the file.
I haven't tried it myself but I've heard that using a good private tracker is safe without a vpn
It’s safe as long as nobody breaks the rules. If law enforcement or copyright holders really wanted a login they could probably get an invite from somebody. The weak link in security is always going to be a person.
Once they infiltrated a private tracker, they’d either have to hack them or download every torrent they want to and track down the seeders. 90% of the seeders would probably be in a different country so, is it really worth their effort? They’re not going to get the people ripping the shows and movies.
So yes, I think getting caught on a private tracker is possible. Perhaps not probable.
Debrid services are usually cheaper (as low as $2.5/month), but you're limited to public trackers with them.
That's what I've been using for around 6 months, works great.
There's a lot of equations that go into this.
- Where are you located? A lot of countries don't enforce laws - Switzerland, Poland, and Spain even permit torrenting for personal use. Third world countries are usually pretty safe.
- What internet are you using? If you're on your own WiFi at home, a VPN is mandatory if you don't want nasty letters. But if you're doing it on, say, Macca's WiFi, you'll be fine. Bit of a dick move if a lot of other people are using the internet, though. It's also worth noting that some internet providers not only prohibit it, but also detect any BitTorrent usage.
- What are you torrenting? More obscure torrents are less likely to have bots scanning for IPs.
- Are you seeding? Seeding and/or uploading torrents without a VPN is insanely risky, because not only does it expose your IP for longer, you're also committing the crime of sharing copyrighted content (which is prosecuted far more often than merely downloading), so unless it's a torrent that's close to dying, your best bet would be to leech and run.
Why would torrenting be unsafe or illegal? It's not illegal to download files peer to peer, at least in the UK. Where are you located?
However, in the UK at least, the ISPs are required to log your activity and pass on to the relevant authorities if requested. Best to use an approved VPN to be sure.
I'd be curious how many account holders in the UK have actually been prosecuted for copyright infringement.
In nearly two decades with the same ISP (Telewest > Blueyonder > VirginMedia) I've had a grand total of two emails from them with no teeth in it, and still download what I want from public trackers to this day.
I get an actual letter from them? Yay, free toilet paper!
*typo
Same in France. It's legal to leech but illegal to seed. But it's easy for a beginner to get confused and seed without knowing, so we still do not advise torrenting to everyone
It really depends on your country and ISP.
I let me VPN lapse a day and my ISP reported 11 takedowns. They warned me (because they don't want to lose a customer). Blocklists aren't good enough anymore.
Depends on the country, in Russia I have been pirating without a VPN for over a year without problems.
I have a seedbox (ultra cc). The legally questionable part happens between the seeder and my seedbox IP. I download the files via SSH/SFTP with my blank IP. Since 7 years. No popo yet.
Probably not, no.
Without VPN or Usenet subscription it's going to be difficult and/or illegal.
Depends on what you’re doing and where. Just like the guy from a country that doesn’t care about copy right laws you can do whatever you want. If you’re in a country that does care then you’d need either A and ISP that doesn’t care (Google Fiber absolutely does, but others don’t) or B a good private tracker.
In the UK I think it depends how much you torrent, how often, and who your ISP is. I'm pretty sure the big main ISPs all have to be vigilant and tell their customers off for doing it. I use a small ISP, and I set my upload speed to 10Mbits and my download to half my max bandwidth. I don't seed a library of stuff just whatever is being downloaded, then I stop. So yes. I'm a leech and have been for years. No VPN. However we only torrent when we can't get something on a service we already pay for so not more than 3 times a week.
tl;dr - in the UK use a small ISP and stay below the radar and you'll be fine.
I'd do it via a seedbox. This way you won't run into ip leaks.
I've never used a VPN, except I guess for work, and never heard boo out of anyone over where I chose to park my ship
Fastvpn is almost 1$ a month if you are a new customer
No. Not unless you want a nasty-gram from your ISP.