10 Best VPNs for Torrenting Safely and Privately in 2023

What legal issues exist with torrenting?

Torrents have become synonymous with copyright abuse and piracy, but the underlying technology is not in itself illegal. Perfectly legal file sharing and torrent sites do exist and are used on a regular basis, such as SXSW and media that falls under the public domain.

If you frequent ThePirateBay, uTorrent, RARBG, Putlocker, Zooqle, 1337X or KickassTorrents, however, chances are what you download from these torrenting sites is not legal. Government authorities can fine you for committing a civil offense, while ISPs and copyright holders will threaten and in some cases follow through on legal action. While it's unlikely that a record company will take someone to court, they might seek damages through settlements.

Here's a quick breakdown on torrenting laws in several countries:

United States

Downloading copyrighted material is illegal in the United States. ISPs often have a three-strike rule if they catch users who illegally download torrents. Non-copyrighted material is completely legal to download.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) website, making unauthorized copies of music recordings could result in a civil lawsuit. It might even land you in jail for up to five years and you could be hit with a fine of up to $250,000.

Copyright holders often act through copyright trolls, which record IP addresses of torrenters and send settlement letters requesting remuneration. These entities have the right to sue on behalf of the copyright holder, but because an IP address does not legally constitute an identity in the US, the best option for recipients is to ignore them.

Canada

The Copyright Modernization Act passed in January 2014 requires ISPs to send notices to copyright violators on their networks. The recipients' identities are stored on ISP servers for six months. Copyright holders cannot sue for damages of more than $5,000 when the copy is used for non-commercial purposes, which in most cases simply isn't worth the time or effort.

The notification system is more educational than legal, but ISPs can still penalize torrenters by choking bandwidth.

United Kingdom

Larger ISPs are required by law to notify subscribers when the British Phonographic Industry catches them downloading torrents in the form of a cease and desist order. ISPs reserve the right to throttle bandwidth and disconnect users. ISPs with fewer than 400,000 subscribers are not subject to this law, however.

Copyright holders have the right to sue uploaders and downloaders for damages even if no monetary gain was involved.

Major ISPs block popular torrent trackers such as ThePirateBay in the UK, but these can still be accessed through a VPN service.

Australia

Piracy is a crime in Australia, but there's little enforcement. It's not completely unheard of for a copyright holder to successfully sue ISPs for torrenters' identities, whom they can then request remuneration from using a practice called speculative invoicing, but it's rare.

A "three-strikes" rule in which ISPs would notify torrenters on behalf of copyright holders was canned earlier this year due to disputes over implementation costs.

ISPs have blocked some torrent trackers and other sites containing infringing content under a court order, such as The Pirate Bay. In 2016, a federal court in Australia ordered ISPs to block BitTorrent tracker sites including ThePirateBay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and SolarMovie. These can still be accessed with any of the VPN providers we listed above.

In late 2018, Parliament passed an amendment to the Copyright Act. This amendment lets ISPs censor proxy servers and mirror sites---duplicates of torrent trackers put up after the original site is blocked---without needing to return to court for each injunction. Likewise, Google and other search engines must demote or remove links to infringing sites including their proxies and mirrors.

The Netherlands

We're adding a section about the Netherlands because there's a huge misconception that pirating copyrighted materials is legal there. As of 2014, it is not. Doing so is considered a civil offense not a criminal one, so you will not be sought out by law enforcement for doing so, but you can be fined.

However, the law states that fines cannot be artificially high, so damages that copyright holders can exact are capped. Early in 2018, Netherlands’ privacy watchdog, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (AP), gave permission to Dutch Filmworks to collect IP addresses of anyone illegally downloading content. The company can hand out fines to users and have decided on a fee of 150 Euros per film.

Germany

Downloading copyrighted material without permission is illegal in Germany. Enforcement is usually handled by law firms that act on behalf of copyright holders (see: copyright trolls). Fines typically range up to 1,000 Euros.

Similar to the US, copyright trolls send threatening letters to torrenters after identifying their IP address. While we're not legal experts in German law, the consensus of what to do if you receive a letter is also similar to the US: if it doesn't identify you by name and doesn't come directly from the police, ignore it and just let the statute of limitations period expire.

Note that if someone pirates content on an unsecured wifi network, the owner of the wifi network can be held liable for damages, even if they were not aware of the illegal activity taking place. This fine is usually around 100 Euros.

Related: Best VPNs for Germany

India

Online piracy laws are a little fuzzy in India. A slew of news reports from 2016 suggested that even viewing certain web pages or torrent files (not the copyrighted content itself) was enough to penalize netizens with heavy fines and jail time. This is not true, however; the rumor arose from a poorly-worded warning from Indian ISPs that appeared when users tried to access blocked sites.

Piracy in India is illegal like anywhere else and could conceivably result in fines or jail time, but the emphasis of enforcement seems to be on redistribution, e.g. bootlegging and selling pirated content, rather than personal consumption.

Related: Best VPN for India

Read more: Is torrenting safe?

Comparitech does not condone or encourage piracy. Please stick to legal torrents.

Are any free VPNs good for torrenting?

Using a free VPN for anonymous torrenting is generally a no-no. Due to the large amount of bandwidth required, many free VPN services prohibit P2P activity. Others aren't secure, and many have data caps. The common adage that comes with free services is that if you don't buy the product, then you are the product. This is especially true because a VPN isn't just a piece of software, it's an ongoing service that requires continuous resources and maintenance.

TunnelBear, Windscribe, and Hide.Me's free tiers are all a bit more reputable, but they have speed or data caps that aren't ideal for torrenting. TunnelBear and VPNGate, a community-run VPN project, explicitly prohibit P2P file sharing.

We passed on several paid VPN providers as well. PureVPN, VyprVPN, HideMyAss, Overplay, and Hotspot Shield all failed to make the cut due to their logging policies. IronSocket and BolehVPN were left out due to performance concerns.

Other so-called free VPNs for torrenting can actually degrade your privacy rather than improve it. Some of them keep logs of your activity, inject tracking cookies into your web browser, insert advertisements on web pages, or even carry malware payloads.

Hola

Some unscrupulous free VPN providers could well be scraping users' personal data and selling it to third parties. One such high-profile case was Hola, a free VPN provider based in Israel. Hola was caught selling users' bandwidth, and it was criticized for being opaque about how each Hola user became a node on the network rather than hosting its own dedicated VPN servers.

VPNGate

VPNGate is a fantastic academic initiative out of Japan that aims to uncensor the web for people living under oppressive anti-free speech regimes. It uses a network of volunteer nodes around the world as relays. It discourages P2P file sharing activities that would hog the network, however, and it keeps logs for up to three months to help weed out abuse and criminal wrongdoing.

IronSocket

IronSocket doesn't keep logs, but the majority of its servers expressly prohibit P2P activity. Those non-P2P servers block all P2P connections. Even if it doesn't keep logs, that means it is monitoring your activity at some level.

Read our full review of IronSocket.

How do VPNs protect your privacy when torrenting?

A VPN protects your privacy when torrenting in two key ways.

First, it prevents your ISP and anyone else on your local and ISP network from seeing that you are torrenting. Because all of the files you download and upload via BitTorrent are encrypted when they pass through your ISP's server networks, their contents cannot be identified. It would take a monumental time- and resource-consuming effort for an ISP to even attempt to crack the encryption put in place by your VPN service.

Secondly, a VPN prevents other users from downloading and/or uploading the same files as you from seeing your IP address. BitTorrent is a P2P, or peer-to-peer, protocol. That means everyone who uses the same torrent file is connected in what's known as a "swarm". Each device connected to the swarm can see all of the other IP addresses of all the other devices in the swarm. Many BitTorrent clients even allow you to view a list of other devices you're connected to when leeching or seeding files on the network.

Without a VPN, your real IP address can be used to identify your approximate location and internet service provider. This is how copyright trolls are able to find torrenters and send them threatening settlement letters (read about how to respond to these in our torrenting safety and legal guide).

A VPN masks your IP address so that other devices in the swarm only see the IP address of the P2P VPN server. The best VPNs for torrenting typically use shared IP addresses, meaning dozens and even hundreds of users are assigned the same IP address. This large pool of users makes it next to impossible to trace torrenting activity back to a single person. Furthermore, if you use one of the logless VPNs on this list, the VPN provider won't have any user information to hand over should a third party request it.

Masking your IP address also protects you from hackers that would use it as a backdoor into your system, find out personal information about you, or even harass you at your home. Your IP address is like your home address, but for your computer. Someone who knows it can find out where you are.

Why hide your IP address when torrenting?

Torrenting is often associated with piracy, and piracy is theft. What's more, torrenting exposes you to files from unknown sources so protecting your identity is usually desirable. We strongly recommend you only torrent content you have the legal right to access to avoid landing yourself in hot water.  If someone gets caught, it probably won't be the police or the copyright owner who comes knocking.

Copyright holders are often large media companies that outsource piracy litigation to shifty law firms dubbed "copyright trolls". Copyright trolls monitor popular torrents for the unique IP addresses of devices that connect to the swarm to upload or download files. They then match those IP addresses to the internet service providers that assigned them to customers. The copyright troll goes through the ISP to send a settlement letter or a copyright violation notice to each torrenter. Settlement letters demand money and threaten legal action if the users don't pay.

As you can imagine, disguising your IP address is popular with BitTorrent users. All VPNs mask your real IP address with that of the VPN server. Unfortunately, not all of them do a very good job. Most VPNs don't protect against certain types of leaks that can expose your real IP address to third parties. These include DNS leaks, IPv6 leaks, and WebRTC leaks.

• DNS leaks occur when a DNS request is sent outside of the encrypted VPN tunnel, exposing the IPv4 address. All the VPNs we recommend protect against this type of leak.
• IPv6 leaks occur when IPv4 traffic goes through the tunnel, but IPv6 traffic does not. This is common on Windows 10 PCs. Some VPNs protect against it, but it's advisable to simply disable IPv6 if you suffer from this leak.
• WebRTC is a communications protocol for voice and video chat apps that run in your browser, like Skype for Chrome. Even if you have a VPN enabled, a WebRTC request can reveal your real IP address. Very few VPNs protect against WebRTC leaks, but you can alternatively disable WebRTC in your browser.

The best VPN apps protect against all of these leaks in all situations. ExpressVPN and NordVPN are notably leak-proof thanks to a combination of kill switches and leak protection measures. Even if your connection is disrupted somehow, no identifiable traffic escapes the tunnel.

Furthermore, it's essential to choose a VPN that keeps no logs. Many VPNs claim to be logless, but that claim often only applies to traffic logs of your online activities. Many supposedly "no-log" VPNs still record users' IP addresses, which is a no-no for torrenters and anyone else who cares about their privacy. None of the VPNs in our list store traffic logs or IP address logs.

Did you know? After years of decline, BitTorrent use has started to increase.

Do all VPNs allow torrenting?

This table shows which VPNs are suitable for torrenting.

Most VPNs allow torrenting. Hiding P2P file sharing is a popular reason to buy VPNs, after all. At a minimum, the VPN you choose should also have a kill switch and never store your IP address or keep traffic logs. The table below shows which VPNs meet those three criteria.

Note that even if your VPN provider allows torrenting, it may prefer you use specific servers or locations when doing so. Consult your provider's website or customer service to ask which servers are suitable for torrenting.

Can using a VPN increase your torrenting speed?

If your internet service provider is throttling BitTorrent traffic, then a VPN can improve your torrenting speed. The VPN's encryption prevents your ISP from seeing that you're torrenting so it can't discriminate against specific types of internet traffic.

Otherwise, a VPN either won't have any effect on torrenting speeds or will lower speeds, depending on the difference in bandwidth between the VPN and your internet connection.

What is a P2P VPN?

A peer-to-peer (P2P) VPN is any VPN that can hide your torrenting activity. The best P2P VPNs keep no logs, come equipped with kill switches, use strong encryption, and offer fast speeds for quick downloads. All of the VPNs we recommend function well as P2P VPNs.

What is the best VPN for torrenting for beginners?

All of the VPNs we recommend are easy to use and should be no problem for beginners. I would recommend choosing a VPN that has a money-back guarantee and 24/7 live chat support. The support staff can quickly help you sort out any problems you might have setting up and running the VPN. If you don't like it, take advantage of the guarantee and try a different one.

What is the best VPN for torrenting on Android?

All of the VPNs we recommend have Android apps, but not all of them have a kill switch feature on Android. ExpressVPN and NordVPN can both be set up to block all internet traffic when the VPN isn't connected. 

Which country VPN is best for torrenting?

Some VPNs will direct torrenters to servers in specific countries. You’ll frequently find torrenting servers in the Netherlands and Canada, among others.

However, it ultimately shouldn’t matter which country you connect to for torrenting. If your VPN is secure and doesn’t store any identifying logs, then you should be able to torrent while connected to a VPN in any country.

What is a Torrent Tracker?

Put simply, a torrent tracker is what helps you find and download torrents from peers on the BitTorrent network. BitTorrent often stores parts of files on various users’ machines. When you want to download a file, the tracker finds all the parts on other users’ machines and assists you in reassembling a complete file. 

Many large trackers also function as BitTorrent search engines.

What is the best server location for torrenting?

If your VPN provider really doesn’t keep any logs, then any location should be fine. Your VPN provider will have no information about your identity or what you do while connected to the VPN.

Just to be safe, here are a few other factors to consider when choosing a VPN server location for torrenting:

• Don’t connect to the same country where your VPN is incorporated.
• Don’t connect to the USA.
• Don’t connect to the country you are currently in.
• Connect to a geographically near server to improve speeds.
• Check if your VPN has P2P-optimized servers

You might come across advice instructing you to connect to the Netherlands due to lax copyright restrictions. This is bad advice. Copyright infringement is still illegal there and Holland’s piracy laws are in line with the rest of the EU. The Netherlands might have been a piracy haven a decade ago, but downloading pirated media officially became illegal in 2014. There’s nothing to be gained by connecting to Amsterdam for torrenting in 2021.

Can Comcast still track my torrent downloading even if I use a VPN?

As long as your VPN doesn’t keep logs and offers sufficient security, no. Comcast has no way of tracking anything you do through the VPN thanks to encryption and use of the VPN server as a proxy to the internet.

If your VPN connection unexpectedly drops while downloading, it’s possible for Comcast to track what you’re doing. Make sure your VPN has a kill switch and that it’s toggled on in the app settings. A kill switch will halt your internet connection if the VPN connection is disrupted for any reason, preserving your privacy until the VPN connection is reestablished.

What port is best for torrenting?

You will want to use a port number above 10000 to avoid being blocked or blacklisted. Many experts recommend a port in the ephemeral range of 49152 to 65535. The default port used by many torrent clients is 6881 to 6889.

In reality, your port number doesn’t matter too much, so long as it’s not being used by any other apps or services on your device.

Note that most VPNs don’t offer port forwarding for security reasons. PrivateVPN is one exception that allows you to set up port forwarding in the VPN app.

Can my ISP see which torrents I am downloading?

Yes, your internet service provider (ISP) can see which torrents you are downloading. ISPs track users' activity and may take action if they detect a user downloading files illegally, including sending warnings or suspending/terminating service. Your ISP can also monitor other websites you visit and any downloads from those sites. To protect yourself from potential issues with your ISP, it is important to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when downloading torrents. This will help ensure that your ISP does not know which files you download through BitTorrent or other p2p software. However, it is essential to remember that using a VPN does not make it legal to download copyrighted material. You should always ensure that you are downloading files legally and ethically.

Can torrents contain viruses?

Yes, some torrents contain viruses and malware. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself. In particular, sticking to popular torrents that have a lot of seeders is a good start (where possible). You should also check the comments of torrents. If there’s anything malicious to be found, this may well be evident in the comments. Of course, it’s a good idea to install a quality antivirus program. We also recommend you use one of the VPNs listed in this post. This provides you with extra security as well as a level of online anonymity.