I used to torrent things back in highschool until Comcast sent my parents a couple emails, one from torrenting Fable another from Jay-Z's American Gangster (which I still love to this day). So I get how it works and what I need.
But I just got a VPN and now I'm ready to get back into it. Before I was on a Mac and I used Transmission. Is that still a good client to use on Windows? Or are there other ones I should use instead? Is 🏴☠️bay a safe place for magnets, or somewhere else? My computer sucks so I won't be going after new games, just older ones and some shows that aren't streaming but I want to checkout.
And am I really that safe using a VPN? Like untraceable, no emails or letters from my ISP for downloading shit?
what vpn provider? If it's good with a no-logs policy, you will not get letters to or from your ISP.
use qbittorrent. it's just a good client. though transmission had a good big update recently, too.
1337x and rarbg have a lot of good torrents between them.
you'll want to enable a kill switch in the vpn software, if available. Or in qbittorrent's case, set the network interface to the virtual interface from the vpn. That will help prevent leaks.
speaking of leaks, when your VPN is enabled use https://ipleak.net/ to test and make sure there aren't any. It can also test your torrent client.
I'm using Nord. If that's bad please let me know, I've only been using it to watch hockey games so far lol. It does have a killswitch that I would use for torrents.
I'll definitely check all those out, thank you!
I tried Nord for a bit and found that it really lowered my download speed, like often 50% and sometimes worse. Switched to Mullvad and it's much better. I use it with Qbitorrent. You can use it on I think three devices simultaneously so I split the yearly subscription with two friends.
I agree with the other person. Mullvad has a good reputation and port forwarding (which you'll want to set a forwarded port in your VPN client and then ensure your torrent client also uses it for best results). And since you're a Windows user you could also consider ProtonVPN, which atm only supports port forwarding in Windows.
Qbittorrent make sure to bind interface to vpn
https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/ssy8vv/guide_bind_vpn_network_interface_to_torrent/ for software use rutracker.org
As people mentioned no letters from a isp... If you make sure it all goes through VPN. When I've had leaks letter. No leaks no letter.
extra tip: if you use qbittorrent, you can install search plugins, letting you search multiple torrent sites at once right there in the app
https://github.com/qbittorrent/search-plugins
This plus installing and configuring jackett is heaven. (Don't forget to sign up for a rutracker dot org account using a throw-away email as they have a lot of stuff. And add that to jackett).
Should probably explain what a seedbox is. A seedbox is a dedicated computer you rent that you use for torrenting. It's an alternative to using a VPN for torrenting. The principle is similar in that it doesn't connect your IP directly to the torrent. The seedbox also runs 24/7 and probably has a fancy internet connection.
Piratebay is not safe for software. Even trusted users distribute malware there.
For videos it's not that great either unless what you want was released in 2015 and has been seeded continuously since then.
Check this: https://www.reddit.com/r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH/wiki/index
As to sites 1337x and rarbg are best for such content. (make sure you spell those right as there are typosquatter domains a number/letter off that give out malware).
Rutracker (dot org, there's a dot ru as well which I still don't know the reasoning behind but it's not as good) tends to have the best stuff for music albums. For software read, read, read up on that linked subreddit wiki about what is and isn't trusted and safe and even then beware, the threat landscape is much, much worse, far more people bundling malware these days than back then.
reject modernity. Retvrn to limewire worms which reduce your screen resolution and set your homepage to meatspin.
I prefer a seedbox to a VPN, high speed ftp downloads won't be flagged by your isp and you're getting lots of remote storage space out of the deal.
Most torrenting software today have a killswitch function which will detect whether or not your VPN is running. If no VPN is detected, then networking won't be allowed. Make sure that is enabled and follow the other tips here and you should be good.
now that you got vpn youre good. Not that those letters mean anything. Ive proudly collected hundreds if not thousands of them in my comcast email before I got a vpn for other reasons. ISP has to "warn" you but they dont give a shit and theyre not gonna lose money if they dont have to. Big studios will try taking them down from sites but they dont even make examples out of people anymore like the early 2000s. They know as well as we do that piracy increases their sales and they have no desire to stop that unless everyone started doing it.
I'd be careful publically posting that specific ISPs don't care. It can bite you in the ass years down the line
In the US, most of the biggest IP holders are also among the biggest ISPs. They may not do the show trials any more, but only because they don't have to.
