Before I say anything further, yes I know how much the recommended VPNs cost. I can read. Please do not interrogate me about it.
I’ve been wanting to get into torrenting for a while, particularly contributing to private trackers related to music (and to a lesser extent retro games, though I don’t have much original stuff to put there as it’s harder to find rare games than rare music). FMHY recommends RiseUp if I must get a free VPN while I’m working on my financial situation, though I’m not sure whether it’s been tested in court. What are my options, if any?
I use proton and our local laundry-mats; they have open WIFI…and you can get your laundry done while waiting for the torrent to finish
Tribler or i2p.
Edit: there are also non-bittorrent p2p networks out there like Retroshare, but I haven’t used them, so don’t know how useful they are.
Doesn’t Proton have a free VPN tier? I think it doesn’t support port forwarding so your connections would be limited, but that might still work?
Otherwise, check the megathread and go with direct downloads. Those happen over https so completely encrypted.
I don’t usually recommend this, but since you are in a situation where you really can’t afford a VPN or a seedbox and live in a country where torrenting is prosecuted then I think that grants a free pass to abuse the tor network a bit and torrent over tor.
There are some guides online on now to route the traffic, note that it’s very easy to leak traffic if you don’t know what you’re doing. Look for a good guide . I’m guessing the safest way to do it is by using Whonix.
If going that route avoid downloading big torrents if you can find smaller ones or try to search for direct downloads first.
And also, I don’t usually say this, but, avoid seeding. Yes leeching is bad, but saturating tor is probably worse I think.
I been using torrents since they became a good option a little over twenty years ago. I’ve torrented using public and all manner of private trackers both with and without vpn or tor.
I have received letters from various ISPs during those years. Here’s what it all boils down to:
What’s most important: turn off peer exchange and dht, turn on require encryption.
What’s also important: only use private trackers.
What’s less important, but good to have: use a vpn with port forwarding with your client bound to its interface. It doesn’t matter if you don’t bind the client to the vpn interface so make sure you do that.
E: just read through the comments on your native instance that don’t show up to me normally. There’s some old misinformation going around still. I’m not gonna argue or go into great detail but things like only leeching, only using foreign trackers or using someone else’s WiFi don’t do anything to help you avoid some kind of letter.
I definitely don’t want to just leech. I use slsk right now and barely use it for downloading, just sharing rare music I find in local thrift stores and such.
Go test into one of the music trackers. It’s easy if you can follow instructions and retain information. If you end up feeling like the social expectations of a private tracker are tripping you up then spend a little time on the mya tracker to get used to it first.
If you’re making your own rips then being exposed to the information, toolsets and expectations of the private trackers will improve the quality of your output.
What’s Mya tracker? Edit: MyAnonymouse, right?
Surprised no one has mentioned using a remote seedbox. There are providers who allow public torrent use, even if some of them discourage it. You can download torrents via a remote server, and then connect to that server via ssh, syncthing or sftp, which are all encrypted, and has the added benefit of giving you a shot at getting into private trackers, if you ever snag an open invite, where having a seedbox is almost essential.
Is that less expensive than a VPN?
No.
I figured.
Are there free seedboxes? If they can’t afford a VPN, they probably can’t afford a seedbox.
I use Cloudflare Warp and make qbittorrent only able to torrent if it’s connected to Warp
I would suggest don’t.
For downloading, look at DDL sites.
For uploading, if you can’t do it safely, don’t. Stash it all, make backups, keep it until you can do it safely.
don’t share files, just leech.
I barely download anything, my main goal is to find more places to spread the rare local music that I’ve got to make it less likely they’ll become lost.
See if Tribler works or fuck it and download anyway.
I’ve been wanting to get into torrenting for a while
Just do it.
I mean you can avoid all that. If you’re just interested in music and retro games then just use soulseek and use the rom megathread. both of which are going to be either peer to peer or direct downloads. no torrenting.
Rom megathread (web search it) has quite literally everything. no need to search, no need to torrent, it’s all right there. And soulseek with Nicotine+ just works like napster. sign up, be sure to share your music library, and then have at it.
I use slsk, I’m just trying to find more places to upload the rare music I have to so it’s less likely to become lost.
Borrowed WiFi is definitely your best bet. Find a place with a fast public WiFi network you can reach from your car.
I wouldn’t do this because the wifi will make sure you never do this again because of dmca strikes
If you use private trackers, a VPN is irrelevant. All you need to do is fully encrypt your traffic in your torrent client so your ISP can’t see what you’re doing. It’s been working just fine for me for 15 years, and I’ve never gotten a letter.
RiseUp is slow and intended for activists and the politically vulnerable. It’s not for poor people who cannot afford a $5 a month VPN. You will be fucking over people with much more legitimate use cases than yours if you start using it for torrenting.
I see… Not sure what I’m supposed to do then.
An alternative that hasn’t been presented yet.
Why not use less well known foreign public trackers? Rutracker has a stupid amount of content, including a lot of niche music content.
If you are worried about Rutracker being too well known, you can try Mazepa Torrent. This is only relevant for movies and shows. Their collection isn’t as good as rutracker, but they have most new releases. While the default audio language is Ukrainian, English is always included (this would an issue for non-English language movies/shows, but English subtitles are usually included).
