Is a VPN necessary for torrenting? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Alextheacceptable@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I don't live in the US, so my ISP doesn't really seem to care what I torrent, but the megathread vehemently recommends to always use one. Since VPNs aren't cheap and I'm on a strict budget (wouldn't pirate otherwise), is it really that dangerous to torrent without one?

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[-] ashlie@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I personally wouldn't take the chance. Mullvad is €5 a month, and is worth it to me. My ISP completely shut off my service before ever giving me a notification. I had to completely restart service after going full Karen and blaming it on "my kids." I would do a few searches and find posts or info relevant to your area or ISP.

[-] xenos@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

+1 for Mullvad! They were raided with a search warrant by Swedish Police who ended up leaving empty handed because the customer data they wanted simply does not exist

[-] KingPyrox@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

How's the speed on Mullvad? I have gigabit currently and don't really want to compromise the speed of my connection

[-] Pulp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Incredibly good. You will probably lose like 100mbps compared to without, at 1gbps.

[-] alphafalcon@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Mullvad stopped providing port forwards, so they're not ideal for torrenting anymore. They were great before.

[-] Pulp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

But barely anyone else provides it too. Proton has it kind of but the amount of servers are restricted so yeah great higher ping/slower speeds depending on where you are from