Explanations written for a child would be :chefs-kiss:
You're gonna want a bittorrent client and probably a VPN.
Step 1: If you live somewhere like the US where your ISP could send you nasty letters or even let the MPAA goons take you to court you should buy a VPN. A VPN takes all your outgoing network traffic and send it to someone else's computer which then forwards the traffic to the site you want to visit. This is only a good idea if you trust the other person's computer more than your ISP. I personally use https://mullvad.net/en/ because they're pretty cheap, trustworthy, and have a tool to check if you're accidentally leaking any information when torrenting https://mullvad.net/en/check/
Step 2: Install a torrent client. On linux there's loads of great ones, transmission might even come pre-installed. I haven't used windows in years, but it looks like the two decent are still deluge and qbittorrent.
Step 3: Turn on your VPN, check that it's working, and then visit from of the larger trackers. There's a huge list of pretty much every torrenting site here. Generally I just check a combination of these sites. thepiratebay dot org, 1337x dot to, rarbg dot to, zooqle dot com. Each of these sites will allow you to get a "magnet link" generally clicking that should open your torrent client and let you download the movie or whatever, but sometimes there will be a "torrent file" that you must download and open with your torrent client.
Step 4: Be a comrade. If you have extra disk space and internet bandwidth to spare, keep your torrents in your torrent program for as long as you can so you can help others download them. Make sure to always turn on your vpn before opening your torrent client.
Edit: @andy points out you may also want to configure a "kill switch" in your vpn. If your computer looses internet access briefly and then reconnects it could connect to your torrents without going through the vpn, thus exposing you. Most VPN providers have a specific app you can install and it's worth making sure you know how to enable the "kill switch" feature. If you're using mullvad it's automatically enabled for you. I personally don't use the app provided and instead use the wireguard vpn client built into the linux kernel. If anyone is reading this make sure you configure deluge (or qbittorrent) to use your wireguard interface like in this screenshot.
Would like to add that you can set a kill switch on your VPN for your torrent client, which will make sure your download will stop if anything happens to your VPN connection
Yea I use mullvad at the moment and quite like then ... there's a LOT of sketchy and generally slimey VPN companies. I dont know of nord being bad per say, but I heard they got hacked last year or something. Its cool that they're using wireguard now though. I would say specifically stay away from Private Internet Access and the other ones owned by that same dude (Cyberghost, ExpressVPN and Zenmate).
I've looked at torrenting before but hadn't got it to work. From reading the other responses, I think I found a decent torrent site but didn't have a client (or just the right client?) installed.
Rarbg for movies and rutracker for music is the best combo imo
Best torrent client is qbittorrent I think, and as for VPNs I'm not that knowledgeable
I would recommend getting qbittorrent as your torrent client; don't get utorrent since its basically adware now
Use a VPN that is not US based (as far as ownership/control) and does not keep logs. This way, if they are subpoenaed, they have nothing to give.
TorrentFreak updates a list yearly. https://torrentfreak.com/best-vpn-anonymous-no-logging/
PPTP, L2TP are not secure. OpenVPN is a great VPN software. On Linux, there is also WireGuard, which is supposedly more secure. You only need the client. Higher encryption for the actual transmission is most important. A good provider supports at least 128 bit encryption for the data between your computer and their server.
Mullvad, AirVPN are 2 I've used. Both have their own clients that are easy to install.
You will want software that cuts the connection (stopping Bittorrent & other programs) if VPN connection drops. IPleak.net is run by AirVPN, tests different data including connection leaks due to WebRTC. You can also use DNSleaktest.com For non-Torrent Web anonymity, there are more things to consider which is beyond the scope of this post.
Deluge is a good software for torrenting (on Win7 & Linux).
ThePirateBay (not sure what domain extension) is a good source for torrents also.
