How To Torrent Software Safely (For Dummies)
How To Torrent Software Safely (For Dummies)
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I wrote this post for a friend, I'm sharing it here for anybody it might help. I got asked multiple times how I download cracked music software so I figured it'd be easier to write it down once. It's meant for people with very low technical skills who just want to start torrenting software without major risks, and it includes a bunch of safety tips that are already known in this community.
If you have feedback, let me know and I'll update the post.
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After a quick glance over your post, I have some thoughts;
Free: ProtonVPN
ProtonVPN is good for torrenting on the paid plan, not the free plan. Proton doesn't allow torrenting on their free plan. They will block your connection if they detect that you are torrenting, or they will disconnect you from their VPN tunnel - exposing your real IP on the torrent.
Paid: Mullvad
Mullvad is a decent choice, though they no longer support port forwarding.
You are still able to download, though you won't be able to seed iircVirusTotal
The problem with a virustotal scan is that pirated software is often false flagged for malware. It's difficult to tell what is safe from what you've downloaded. It's best to download from a trusted uploader, though that doesn't always guarantee safety as they can always go rogue (As an example, FTUApps were seen as safe until one of their uploads to 1337x contained malware).
Older uploads tend to have less false positives in my experience, though it can be very easy to become complacent.
edit; score out comment about mullvad seeding, others have pointed out that it still works fine! oops
Would you like to offer alternative suggestions to the vpn selection?
FWIW: I have a paid torguard and poaching my works license for NordLayer.
Both have their pros and cons. They’re generally good with anonymity and security and speeds.
I don't know of any free vpns for torrenting, though I believe ProtonVPN (paid), Windscribe (paid) and AirVPN (paid) offer port forwarding at the moment. PIA can be used to port forward, though they are owned by kape which is kinda sketchy to me.
You can use windscribe free for torrenting, but you will quickly hit the data cap they have in place
I can confirm PIA fully works as long as you're connected to one of the endpoints that supports port forwarding, and it works over wireguard which I prefer. My torrent client runs in a docker container that runs all traffic through it.
Whether or not you trust their claim of not saving any logs (especially after getting bought out a few years ago) is up to you, but there hasn't been any evidence to suggest they are, and they've had reputable audits to suggest they don't.
Does PIA have a free plan that works? Since the only free option was immediately debunked in these comments.
I wouldn't recommend using any free VPN for anything, personally.
I already have a paid one, but I wrote this for people who don't care enough to pay for one. Basically the alternative is either a free one or none. If I'm talking to a friend I'd rather they use a shady free VPN than none at all.
windscribe offers 10 GB/month free, and you can build a $3 custom monthly plan if you need more bandwidth
Yeah I've updated the post to have Windscribe as the recommended free one, with a warning about free VPNs
I mean fair enough, it's better to expose your IP to one VPN provider than to blast it to thousands of peers, but the trade-off of recommending free VPNs to people who aren't tech savvy (especially when it sounds like there aren't any legit ones that support torrent traffic), is you're inviting them to find a shady one somewhere thinking they're being safer and risking getting MITMed or their login tokens stolen in transit trying to browse the internet while they're downloading something.
I would just consider paying a few bucks for a VPN to be a hard constraint of using torrents even somewhat safely.
You're right, I guess, but if we only recommend paid ones people will just google for free ones and use whichever shady provider is at the top of the google results. People are really averse to subscriptions.
I've added a warning about free VPNs and switched to recommending Windscribe, which still has a decent reputation.
There is no good free VPN. Proton is the only one with a free tier I'd trust, but again, it won't help with stuff like this. VPNs are expensive operations to run. If it's free to use, there's basically no chance that they aren't monetizing it in a shady way.
Mullvad is $5/month, you don't have to subscribe (you can buy a single month), and they accept multiple private payment options. I would highly recommend shelling out the $5 to protect yourself over risking it with a free VPN.
I mean, PIA is like 40 bucks for an entire year. You're not gonna find any prominent streaming service, pro-grade subscription software, or pro-grade software license that's as cheap as that.
If the goal is to access all desired software and media safely while paying as little as possible, it's a great choice.
Windscribe at $3 per month is slightly cheaper and less dodgy than PIA. I left PIA for Mullvad when Kape bought them. They're very questionable based on my (then) research.
Thanks for the report about ProtonVPN, I haven't used it in a bit so I didn't know. Do you know a better free VPN which does allow torrenting? I know a paid one would always be better, but this is for people who are just not willing to spend money. A shady free VPN is better than none.
For VirusTotal I know about the false positives, that's also why I included the reddit post on how to interpret the results. I still find a scan to be good practice to weed out the more obvious malware.
In that case, direct downloads (in conjunction with ProtonVPN free) would be a superior method. The article makes piracy sound synonymous with and exclusive to torrenting, but DDL and Usenet also exist. Many of the megathread categories have DDL links right at the top.
Cs.rin.ru is mainly gaming focused but has an FAQ that covers general DDL concepts like source trustworthiness/scene names and workarounds for filehoster limits. You could probably paraphase/quote or screenshot with credit (ironically) to save a login. The same people not wanting to sign up for a VPN might also look askance at a .ru domain.
The article makes piracy sound synonymous with and exclusive to torrenting
It was only meant to be a guide about torrenting pirated software specifically, not pirating software in general. I also started by linking to the megathread to link people to other resources.
I don't really want to add a whole other section about DDL just because I feel I couldn't do it justice, and people have probably already done a better job at that.
Do you know a better free VPN which does allow torrenting?
I don't, sorry. There are free VPNs which have been recommended in the fmhy wiki, though I don't know if they support torrenting and/or port forwarding.
Edit; just remembered about windscribe, you can torrent on the free plan, but data is very limited so might not be a good option either
@Deletecat @andscape mullvad works when seeding, false information.
I've scored out that part of the comment now.
I was under the impression that you couldn't seed without port forwarding, guess I was wrong :p
@Deletecat it's not necessary on a VPN level when your router has port forwarding configured properly. App tunnel splitting can be used to dox your IP but allows the DHT table and trackers to "find" you, then just disable it to hide your IP. Simple, but not recommended.
I can confirm that Mullvad tunnelled seeding still works even with the port forwarding changes
Just a quick question, have you port forwarded in Mullvad in the past?
They stopped people from opening new ports last month, September is when they will get rid of the remaining ports. If you aren't port forwarding, I will edit my initial comment!
No port forwarding ever set up on my system! It's bound to my interface and lockdown mode is enabled, all leeching and seeding is tunnelled fully.
Edit: as far as I'm aware, not being able to port forward only limits who you can seed to. Meaning you can only seed to those who do have port forwarding.
Thanks for this, changed the point in my main comment to remove the part about seeding!
See my edit for a little additional clarity but I'm glad I could help!
Could you please elaborate. What does it mean? Do still able to seed with Mullvad and default settings?
You can still seed without port forwarding, not being able to port forward only affects how many clients can seed from you. Not being able to port forward causes it to be limited to only other people who are able to port forward.
Thank you!!
This is going to be a total noob (and thus stupid) question, but is it possible to selfhost a vpn?
No such thing as a stupid question :p
Yes, you can self-host a VPN! Though there are a few things to keep in mind if you are going to torrent using one:
- A self-hosted VPN on your own network isn't good for torrenting. Your own IP is still shown to other peers on the torrent, you might as well torrent without the VPN.
- Depending on your server host, you may not be allowed to torrent on their network.
- If you are allowed to torrent, you will have to watch your bandwidth limit*. I have a cheap VPS - for other things unrelated to VPNs/torrenting - and the limit is 20TB of traffic
- Many hosts will respond to DMCA/Abuse complaints - very few are relaxed and ignore DMCA complaints, others may shut off your access to their services after a single complaint
*some hosts do not have a limit though cheap servers usually do.
From what I can tell, most server hosts don't care about what you are doing with your server, unless your server is gathering abuse reports or using an excessive amount of resources constantly. I would go for a subscription to a VPN instead of self-hosting but that's just me.
So how do you check for viruses without a bunch of false positives?
@ScratchySoft @Deletecat http://virusscan.jotti.org
Online file scannerAre you sure that won't also get a bunch of false positives because it detects that a file is a keygen or crack?
@ScratchySoft it should know the difference between a virus and a keygen, yes.
I sure hope so.