I torrent (on the same PC that I run a Plex server from), but also auto connect on my devices whenever I’m on public wifi, so speed and avoiding blocks/captchas is also important. From what I understand having port forwarding will make a big difference in my torrent transfer speeds and ability to connect to peers.
I’m currently using Nord, but I’d like to make the switch to a company with a better privacy track record. I’m still really drawn to PIA because of the speeds and port forwarding, but I know their ownership is pretty sketchy, even if there’s nothing to point to there (yet). Mullvad dropped port forwarding, which seems to leave ProtonVPN. But now I’m hearing that the influx of Russian users post-invasion has increased the number of sites and services that block PVPN servers?
It seems like despite the huge amount of choices, nothing checks all the boxes except PIA. Am I missing something, or misinformed?
I’m not on any private trackers. I’d be interested, but not until I have a more dedicated setup; I’m still very much a casual torrenter.
It’s good news then if port forwarding won’t affect my downloads, because that was the only reason I wanted it, but I saw others online say that lacking that feature is what was causing me not to connect to peers shown in my torrent client. Any idea what’s up with that?
Not really. Either my explanation is wrong or theirs is. Honestly could be either.
There's so much misunderstanding and misinformation around torrenting.
All I know is that I've never had any problems downloading without being connectable. Never ever. It's just not an issue.
Additionally, the vast majority of people torrenting in 2023 are using a vpn and none (very few) of them will forward ports so it can't be a big deal.
Thirdly, there's a lot of piracy purists / elitists who just can't abide the idea that your set up may not have the best possible configuration for seeding. IMO, seeding on a residential connection is just a waste of time - download on a residential connection, seed on a VPS / seedbox.