Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

im young enough to live with family

Tell your parents that they'll lose their internet if they don't give you $20 per year for VPN.

I think that depends very much on your jurisdiction and the type of content you download. In Germany when I did things without VPN I most of the time downloaded english content and not the latest blockbusters. Copyright enforcment companies, at least back then, were hired for specific newer movies. Now I have things more automated so I'd rather not risk tripping any wires.

You can get a vps for $5/month or less. Installing vpn software with one of the automagical scripts takes 30 minutes at worst.

I've never used a vpn while torrenting in the US. Unless utorrent has one built in. Been doing it for 25 years and never had a problem.

People probably won't like that answer, but whatever. It's true.

Like most things, it depends on your jurisdiction and the policies of your ISP. But as a general rule, yes, you should take steps to hide your IP.

Probably a good case example is to look at how many people in your area were sued for torrenting. For example, the rights holders to Dallas Buyer’s Club famously went nuclear on torrenters, so maybe start by searching that. Of course none of this is legal advice.

PIA is pretty reliable in my experience and their three year plan is quite affordable.

Just use ProtonVPN. They have a free tier. No credit card required. Its slightly slower speeds, but it will keep you from getting in trouble while sailing the high seas 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

depending on what you you plan on downloading you can probably use direct downloads instead, and you won't need a VPN if I'm not mistaken. no idea if and how available things are, though

If you convert a magnet link to a .torrent file (there are many sites that can do that) and then upload the .torrent file to archive.org, they'll download the files to their servers as part of their archival process, then you can just download the files via standard https, you ISP will only know you downloaded from archive.org.

But archive.org isn't really meant to be used this way, so this is probably unethical. But I think section 230 protect them (for now), so its not like they'll get shutdown or anything (correct me if I'm wrong).

well with tormenting no but torrenting? yes

Ask people from your country, or look online to see if torrenting is prosecuted there. If people don't get letters from the ISP, you can just enable encryption in your torrent software and forget about it.

I've been torrenting without VPN for a decade (Spain), and never had any issues, not even traffic slowdowns.

Edit: You're probably gonna see a lot of advice to always use a VPN. Most of this advice is from US users, who are not used to torrenting without VPNs. The truth is, as with everything, it really depends. I'm not a fan of generalized answers to questions, and the same advice isn't as good for every situation. VPNs are a barrier of entry, and they also come with a slowdown. If you're starting to torrent and VPNs are not necessary in your country, don't be afraid to torrent without one. But of course, if you're from the US, you'll have to use one!