search for torrents on tor download on vpn Torrenting over Tor. Tor is an incredible place to find torrent files, but it’s not the best option for using a torrent client. There are many reasons that Tor for torrents isn’t practical for torrenting. Tor is too slow for downloads Torrent clients leak your IP address even with Tor. What’s Tor good for? Private communication Free expression Accessing hidden sites Finding torrents. What is the better option for safe torrenting? What’s Tor? Tor is a free-to-use server that volunteers run all over the world. More than seven thousand relays make up the system to help keep your information private. Its name comes from the layers of security used to help make this possible, like the layers of an onion. The router was started by the United States Naval Research Laboratory to help keep their information safe. Now it’s used by many people to help keep their internet activity private. People use Tor for political protest, free communication, and private research. Tor can let you access the dark web, sites that are not available on more regulated servers. This access means that you can find some exciting and sometimes dangerous things on Tor. Torrent Clients Leak Your IP Address Even With Tor. One of the main reasons Tor torrenting doesn’t work comes from the fact that many torrent clients give out your IP directly. Tor obscures your IP by routing your use through dozens of other points. Torrenting clients forward your IP information directly and ignore all of this information. By connecting to some clients, you lose all the privacy that you gain from Tor. It undoes all of the protection that Tor can afford you. You can just be slowing down your downloads and still giving out your information with every torrent you seed. Tor is Slow for Downloads. Volunteers work together to make Tor. They create a very private network of servers. People aren’t making money on the server, so there is no funding to build up the infrastructure, making the web faster. You will get very low speeds when downloading on the Tor router. You can get the high speeds available on paid networks out there. The lack of speed and bandwidth can make downloading Tor torrents very difficult. What’s Tor Good For? There are many valuable features about Tor that make it a viable option for privacy, communication, and accessing websites that aren’t on the surface web. Tor is an excellent tool for staying private online. It can help you avoid many unwanted third parties from seeing your online activity. Many people use it to get information online without giving up their location and personal data. Private Communication. You can use Tor to send private communications. They offer connections to emails and other messages over the internet. It was the reason the navy invented the router, and it’s still one of the most frequently used aspects of the system. This feature is handy for journalists and whistleblowers who want to share information but don’t want to give out their identity and location. Free Expression. Third parties can censor many things on the surface web. Tor allows users to post whatever they want without having to worry about other sources controlling the content. Sometimes this freedom is abused, and there are many examples of misinformation and even worse material found on Tor sites. There are also examples of information that can be helpful for understanding life in other places. Accessing Hidden Sites. Tor is a great way to access the deep and dark web. These two terms get thrown around without people fully understanding what they mean. The deep web refers to sites that search engines don’t index. These sites can include email threads, private sites, research databases, and many other places. These sites are not helpful to everyone but great for users who need to access them. There has been a lot of talk about the dark web, and some Findof it’s true. You can find strange, dangerous, and illegal stuff online, but it’s not all bad information. There are many places on the dark web to get around third-party bands. You can find whistleblower sites, free speech online forums, and even social media platforms. All of this stuff is less regulated than the surface web, so you must be more careful when using it. You have to know the exact URLs for sites you want to visit on Tor; you can’t just type in keywords like you can on the surface web. Finding Torrents. There are a lot of places on Tor where you can find and download torrent files. You can use Tor to find and download a tiny torrent file, then leave Tor, turn on your torrenting client and download the whole file with ease. Web search services like Google and Bing block many torrent file sites. Tor can be a great service for finding torrent files with fewer restrictions. Is Tor Legal? Tor is entirely legal to use to access the internet in the United States. However, like with many things, how you use Tor can determine how legal it’s. You can have the program on your computer, you can access the internet with it, and you can go to many websites with no problem. Many of the sites and activities you can access with the Tor browser torrenting are illegal, and once you interact with these places, you could get in trouble with local and federal law enforcement. The program is safe and legal, but how you use it can cause you problems if you are not prudent. Staying on safe sites and avoiding illegal activities is one of the best ways to keep safe on Tor. Staying Safe on Tor. When you use Tor, you have to know where you want to go. When you are on Tor, you want to avoid using apps that leak your actual IP address; this includes many torrent clients and other apps. You also don’t want to give out any personal information on Tor and avoid logging into things while using Tor. Even though your data runs through relays, some unscrupulous volunteers to the project may be able to read your data as it exits the system and steal your passwords and log-in info. Tor Vs. VPN for Torrenting. Tor is a wonderful system for online privacy, but it’s not a viable option for torrenting. When you compare Tor and VPNs, you start to see that there are just too many problems when torrenting with Tor and so many advantages to using a VPN. Security. Both Tor and VPNs are secure when you have them on and active. Tor works on your browser activity and helps keep it safe. You have to turn a VPN on, but it can protect all internet activity coming in and out of your device once active. If you have other apps or programs on your device, Tor may not offer any protection. When you start the torrent client program, your data and info can be available to everyone. Privacy. With a VPN, you have to research the company you are using to find out how private it is. You can find options that don’t keep logs and data on their users. If you pick the right system, you can stay very private on a VPN. With Tor, your data and location are hidden when using your browser. However, when your data exits the servers, it can be monitored by 3rd- parties. They won’t connect the data to you, but people will see what you are doing online. It can compromise certain data you share. Speed. A VPN’s speed depends on many things, but you can find one that gives you top speeds. It may not match the speed of your unthrottled internet connection, but you can come close and add security and privacy options. Tor is not that fast. You can tell that it doesn’t come anywhere near your regular internet bandwidth when you are using it. The lack of speed can make Tor for torrents annoying because it can take a long time to download anything. Ability to Torrent. Many VPNs pride themselves on their torrenting servers. They develop unique protocols that could help the user get good security and higher speeds. There are VPN options that don’t allow torrents, but they post their torrenting status when you buy them. Tor is not an excellent torrent browser. They will stop you from using P2P sharing to protect bandwidth. When you log on to the node, it might not allow torrenting at all. It makes it harder to use Tor for downloads. Best VPN for Torrenting. There are a lot of good VPNs for Torrenting. These networks will help keep your data private, avoid data throttling from ISPs, and allow you to use your torrent client without giving up your IP address. Some of these VPNs even allow you to use Tor with them. That means that you can get even more layers of security every time you use the service. You still won’t want to torrent on Tor, but you can use the router for other privacy concerns. NordVPN. NordVPN is one of the most popular and feature-rich options for VPNs. They offer over 5,400 servers in 59 countries. Some servers optimize peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing. With NordVPN, you get super-fast servers that can help you download your torrents with privacy and speed. There is plenty of bandwidth, so you don’t have to wait extra time to get your files. You also get high-end encryption for data coming and going from your computer. Your IP address stays hidden, even when the torrent client connects. It’s a great way to keep your location private while still sharing files. If you still need to use Tor for other reasons, you can access The Onion Router with NordVPN, so you get even more protection when using the router. SurfShark. Surfshark gives you access to over 3,200 servers in over 65 countries. With Surfshark, you can torrent on all of their servers. The network has good speed and security, so you can torrent with peace of mind knowing your data is safe. Where SurfShark shines is its affordability. It’s one of the least expensive VPN options that allow you to torrent. If you were looking for Tor to help save money and get secure, Surfshark might be a beneficial option for you. ProtonVPN. ProtonVPN’s goal is to offer a safe and private internet for everyone. They built their whole network with privacy in mind. When you use ProtonVPN for torrenting, your data will stay safe and secure. You can log on to over 1,200 servers in 55 countries. They have dedicated servers for torrenting that you can use any time to download all the information you want. They use high-end protocols and encryption to help keep you safe while you torrent. ProtonVPN isn’t the fastest VPN available, but the speeds are decent, and they offer one of the most secure experiences out there. If privacy is your main concern online, ProtonVPN can help you out. Can I Use A Free VPN for Torrenting? Unfortunately, free Tor isn’t an excellent solution for torrenting. It’s tempting to look for other free privacy options online. There are many free VPNs out there, but these are not great options for torrenting either. There are a few problems with free VPNs. First, they are extremely limited. To offer them for free most places put strict restrictions on the servers. These caps can include blocking torrenting and limiting the amount of data you can use in a day. There is also a problem with security and privacy on free VPNs. VPNs can collect a ton of info about every user. If they are logging information, they can see all your internet activity. People have caught these services collecting and selling users’ data. These data leaks can be as benign as selling your search info to ad companies targeting you to selling your log-in information for financial sites to hackers. There are many other more useful and safe options out there to gain privacy when downloading torrents. SOCKS5 Proxy. Another alternative to using Tor for torrenting is a SOCKS5 Proxy. It allows users to download torrents at extremely high speeds and connect with more peers. It’s a helpful system if you want to maximize the speed of your torrenting clients. The downside to SOCKS5 Proxy is that it doesn’t protect you from giving up your location and data. It can cause you problems because you can give up all your data to anyone sharing the file. If you pair SOCKS5 with a VPN, you can get incredible speeds and protect your info. It can be beneficial for torrents. Final Thoughts. Tor is an advantageous server that can help you do many things online with increased privacy and safety. It isn’t the best option for using a torrent client. Many nodes on Tor block torrenting altogether. When you couple that with slow speeds, it makes torrenting with Tor a lousy option. Many other services can help you get fast download speeds and more security for your torrents. Some alternatives include VPNs and other proxy servers. Use Tor to find the torrent files from torrent sites blocked by other internet services, then use another service to protect your data with the torrent client. Tor has its uses, but Tor for torrents isn’t one of them. Can Tor Be Used to Download Torrents? Tor provides anonymous Internet browsing, but can you use it for torrenting? Here is what you should know before trying to use a BitTorrent client with TOR. What Is Tor? The Onion Router (TOR) was originally developed to protect communications of the U.S. Navy. Not much later, it was available for everyone to browse the Internet anonymously. It is now a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of tools for online privacy. As with a VPN service, the Tor network routes your Internet traffic through computers in other parts of the world. But unlike VPN services, the network is comprised of computers from volunteers instead of managed servers. Tor gained popularity for its ease of use and privacy. Users can simply download a package containing the Tor browser and start browsing privately. The anonymity of the free tool led many users to try using Tor for torrenting. While you can technically configure the Tor network to work with a BitTorrent client, there are several important reasons why you should avoid doing so. The Tor Network Is Incredibly Slow. As mentioned, Tor relies on volunteers. Individual computers, called nodes, connect to create the network. When you use the Tor browser, your traffic goes through several of these nodes before coming out the other end. This routing results in severely limited Internet speeds. Most users already find it difficult to obtain speeds close to their normal download speeds when torrenting. As with the Tor network, BitTorrent clients rely on individual computers connected in a network. These peer-to-peer (P2P) connections tend to be slow. The combination of the slower Tor network and the limitations of the P2P network give you painfully slow download speeds. The Tor Network Is Used for Free Speech. Using the Tor network for torrenting goes against the current aim of the non-profit organization. Tor wants to give journalists and citizens access to free speech in countries with limited freedoms. In some regions, Tor is the only way for journalists and activists to share their stories. It also provides citizens with a way to access information from outside their country. The Tor network already has limited bandwidth. Using a portion of this bandwidth for torrenting takes away from those that need it. Tor Is Not a Secure Proxy. To use a BitTorrent client through the Tor network, you need to configure the client to use Tor as a proxy. Unfortunately, most people do not set this up properly, leaving their IP addresses exposed . The problem occurs when users fail to route the P2P connection through Tor. Without the right configuration, Tor only provides an anonymous connection to the torrent tracker. The P2P connection remains public. Another very important detail is that most BitTorrent clients rely on DHT (Distributed Hash Table), which is essential for magnet links to work properly. The issue here is that DHT relies on UDP protocol and Tor does not support UDP. When attempting to download a torrent from a tracker that relies on UDP connections, your proxy settings will not work. The P2P connection is still visible to prying eyes , such as your Internet Service Provider. Consider Using a VPN Instead of Tor. Tor is not the only way to remain anonymous when torrenting. In fact, with everything discussed, it is one of the least effective ways. A Virtual Private Network is a smarter and safer choice. Tor vs VPN. When connected to a Virtual Private Network, all your traffic travels through secure servers (managed by the VPN service) instead of a network of individual computers. As with the Tor network, your IP address gets hidden. It appears as the IP address of the VPN server that you connect to. However, VPNs provide greater security, privacy, and speeds compared to Tor. You can use the UDP protocol with VPNs and ensure that all connections, including P2P, remain hidden. The other peers in the swarm and anyone else watching sees the IP address of the VPN server instead of your true IP address. The extra features of the VPN can make a big difference. Another advantage is that the VPN encrypts traffic moving both ways. The requests that you make are encrypted and then decrypted on the other end. When you download content or browse the Internet, the data gets encrypted, routed to your computer, and then decrypted. These steps keep you anonymous when torrenting. On top of that, in case you lose the connection to the VPN server, many VPN providers include a kill switch. It instantly stops your Internet connection before your IP address gets exposed. You also get to enjoy faster speeds . As these services use dedicated servers designed for downloading content, you can get speeds closer to your normal download speeds. Reliable VPNs. These are a few of the VPN providers that we recommend using instead of Tor. Is it safer to download torrents over Tor or a normal Browser? I'm asking this question because I really want an explanation, I'm not familiar with this type of stuff. When I downloaded the Tor browser it told me not to download torrents because there was an exploit people were using when you do so. I was confused because Tor is looked upon as the safest of browsers. Why is it unsafe to download Torrents from the Tor browser. If that's the case wouldn't it always be unsafe to download torrent. So what's safer? Tor Browser? Or a browser with a VPN? 1 Answer 1. The Tor project recommends that you don't use Tor for BitTorrent traffic because there are numerous anonymity leaks in the protocol. Even more so, if you only download the .torrent via Tor but open it in a client that's configured for standard non-Tor operation, you've gained essentially nothing in anonymity, as the client will send the tracker information about your download (assuming you're not relying entirely on DHT). The Tor Browser Bundle is principally concerned with anonymity , and that's what it's warning you about. Security is a different matter. When using Tor, you funnel your traffic through several nodes, and thus open yourself up to a man-in-the-middle attack. This is one of the reasons it's very important to combine Tor usage with HTTPS, which will provide (within the limits of HTTPS, which is to say "mostly") a guarantee that your traffic hasn't been tampered with. How To Actually Torrent Privately & Anonymously For Free. Despite all their political baggage, torrents are undeniably one of the most efficient and effective ways to distribute data. Their speed and resilience are part and parcel to their popularity. However, because of their design they also easily expose those who use them. Political/social/philosophical debates aside, torrents present a serious privacy problem for their everyday users. Indeed, anyone can watch who torrents what. This tutorial will describe two separate ways, each with their pros and cons, to route around this issue. Weak Privacy, Fast Speed: VPN. The most popular method to achieve privacy while torrenting is to use a VPN. Of course, this comes with a very large caveat that will be covered shortly. Nevertheless, VPNs work by routing your traffic through a given server, often in a location of your choice. Importantly, the server that routes your traffic will also route the traffic of hundreds, if not thousands of other users. Assuming that the VPN company doesn’t log who is using the VPN server (a big assumption), there’s no way for the average actor to tell where the traffic came from behind the VPN. What this means is that if you’re downloading a given file using torrents, all the peers that you’re sharing with will only see the VPN server’s IP address rather than your own. Of course, they can still approach the VPN company to try and determine who was behind the VPN, but most decent VPNs promise not to hand over this information. Moreover, if your ISP is watching they will also only see garbled data instead of the actual files, because VPNs encrypt all the data that passes through them. Now for the caveat: unfortunately, VPN companies work exclusively based on promises, and promises are easily broken without you, the customer, ever knowing. While a VPN company may claim not to log traffic, you have no way to verify that they’re keeping to this promise. When faced with the threat of legal action a VPN company may very well just reveal your information, rendering the privacy they claim to provide completely null. With that said, VPN companies are also extremely reputation based, and if a user were to face negative consequences because the VPN company broke their privacy guarantee, then news would spread like wildfire and they would likely lose much of their business quite rapidly. Moreover, VPNs are also quite fast, allowing you to download files quickly. Whether you accept these risks is a decision that is exclusively your own. If you do head down the path of VPNs, know that you’ll want to either find one that has drop protection built into the provided software, or (if you’re on Linux) check out my tutorial on using firewall rules to protect against VPN drops. The reason that this is necessary is that if the VPN suddenly disconnects and you don’t have adequate protection in place to stop your torrents, you’ll end up revealing your real IP address, which may or may not land you in trouble. Strong Privacy, Slow Speed: I2P (via Vuze) I2P is an online anonymity network that leverages the wonders of cryptography to provide strong privacy. Indeed, if a VPN provides privacy by policy, then I2P provides privacy by design. It relies less on promises and more on mathematics to provide the utmost level of protection. While it operates much slower than a VPN, it is also much more private and secure, and is completely free. I2P works by encrypting your connection and routing it through not just one server, but several servers in such a fashion that by the time your traffic reaches its destination it is nearly impossible to determine where it originated from. This is similar to Tor, but with a notable difference being that the Tor network is not designed to handle heavy traffic (i.e. torrenting), whereas I2P proudly encourages it. For this reason, there are a few options available for torrenting on I2P, with the strongest being through Vuze, a torrent client with an optional I2P plugin called I2PHelper. I2PHelper has a built-in I2P client, meaning that you don’t need to bother with the rather clunky I2P interface. Installing an I2P-enabled Vuze client is easy. First, head over to Vuze’s website and download and install the Vuze client. Next, open Vuze and head to the Tools menu, navigate to Plugins, and finally the Installation Wizard. Select By List, click Next, and scroll down until you find the I2PHelper plugin. Select it, click next, and complete the rest of the installation. Next, we need to configure I2PHelper just slightly. Navigate again to the Tools menu, but this time click on Options. On the Mode menu in the left panel, select Advanced as the user proficiency to give yourself more options in the interface. Next, head down to Plugins>I2PHelper, again on the left panel. Here you can adjust your bandwidth. Set it to a reasonable level based on how much of your network connection you are willing to share (I set mine to unlimited). Finally, go to the Connection menu in the left panel, and scroll down to the Networks option set. This is where you will select whether you want torrents to be downloaded through the regular internet, through I2P, or through Tor. If you want the utmost anonymity, select I2P. Do not select Tor for this, as you will harm the network. Finally, click save and exit the options. Do know that initially any torrents that you download will be painfully slow, but over time as your computer becomes better known on the network your connection will become faster until it is no longer painfully slow, just slow. Finding Torrents. Other than the slower speeds, the main downside to torrenting with I2P is torrent availability. Indeed, you can’t just download any torrent through I2P. Instead, you must find torrents that are already being shared by other I2P users. There are two ways to go about this. First, you could head over to my I2P introduction tutorial and learn how to navigate to hidden services (websites not available on the regular internet) on I2P, where you will find a torrent tracker called Postman. Any torrent you find on Postman will work reliably with I2P, but the only downside is that the selection isn’t as large as what is available on the clearnet. If, on the other hand, you want to download torrents you find on regular torrenting websites like The Pirate Bay (yes, .torrents, magnet links to the clearnet won’t work with only I2P enabled), you’ll have to go through a bit of trial and error. This is because Vuze’s I2PHelper allows users to torrent both on I2P and the clearnet in parallel, a feature it calls network mixing. This means that if you download an Ubuntu torrent, for example, it will download and share Ubuntu through the regular internet, but it will also go onto I2P and download and share it there as well. The implication of this is that if other I2PHelper users have already downloaded a regular torrent on the clearnet and are sharing it on I2P through network mixing as well, then you’ll be able to download it from them exclusively through I2P. Knowing which torrents are available through network mixing, however, involves simply adding them to Vuze and hoping that they find peers, which is by no means a guarantee. Again, using Postman is a much more reliable method, even if selection is more limited. Network Mixing for the Public Good. If, on the other hand, you’re comfortable with the increased speed and risk of a VPN, but would also like to help those who use I2P exclusively to torrent, then you’re a prime candidate for enabling network mixing. Do note that you won’t gain any real benefit in terms of privacy through this route as your weakest link will still be the VPN, but you’ll be helping build a more secure and private torrent network by making more content accessible to it. The only necessary change to enable this is to go back into Vuze’s Options menu, navigate to the Connection settings on the left pane, scroll back down to the Networks option set, and select both Public IP Network and I2P Network as your default torrent networks. With these enabled, everything you download through the clearnet will also be available to those who only use I2P. Just don’t forget to enable your VPN before you begin torrenting! Want to upgrade your online privacy? I use NordVPN to encrypt my traffic and route it across the globe, and Spideroak for rock solid encrypted cloud storage! Torrenting With NordVPN. If you’ve been researching for a VPN for any length of time, chances are that you’ve at least seen the name “NordVPN” mentioned a few times. The company went from a small startup to a world-famous VPN service. NordVPN became very popular in the torrent community. In fact, many consider it the best for torrenting. That’s because it fully supports P2P and it offers features that go hand in hand with torrenting. Does NordVPN Support Torrenting? NordVPN is very upfront about its torrenting policy. They allow BitTorrent traffic, and users can be sure of that within the application itself. If you head over to the “specialty server” area in the NordVPN app, you will see a space dedicated to P2P . The fact that they provide servers built to download torrents is an obvious indicator of their stance on file-sharing. Is NordVPN Safe for Torrenting? In order to be considered safe to download torrents, a VPN must follow a few good practices that ensure the user’s safety: Encryption and Protocol. The software operates on the OpenVPN protocol, with an AES-256-CBC encryption cipher and a 2048 bit strength SSL key. This VPN protocol is considered safe for P2P file sharing, and it’s the one we usually recommend. On top of that, there’s a new and promising protocol available, developed by the NordVPN team themselves. They’ve built the NordLynx protocol based on WireGuard, but with a few crucial improvements. Company Location. NordVPN’s business license is in Panama. It would be very tough to legally coerce the VPN company, since it’s located outside the US and EU jurisdictions . Staying away from the reach of governments that are famous for snooping on their citizen’s activity is a big plus. Logging Policy. One of the essential details in a VPN that aims to be torrent-friendly is its logging policy. And according to NordVPN, they do not keep logs of their user’s activity. Recently, a famous and neutral audit company confirmed this policy claim after auditing NordVPN. They got permission to see what NordVPN sees and verify if they saved any activity logs. How to Torrent With NordVPN? It only takes a few steps to download torrents with NordVPN safely. After getting a subscription and downloading the software, this is what you should do: 1. Turn the Kill Switch on. When you activate this security feature, all Internet connectivity stops if the VPN connection drops for any reason. 2. Connect to a P2P Server. Now it’s time to choose a server. Remember to connect to one with a “P2P” tag. Those are the ones that allow torrent downloads. 3. Start Torrenting. You are now protected behind a NordVPN server with its own IP address and an encrypted connection. You can now look for your torrents, open your BitTorrent Client, and start downloading. Torrenting With NordVPN’s Proxy. NordVPN subscribers may also use a SOCKS5 proxy to download torrents. It’s a type of proxy that is usually used for file-sharing and it has no extra cost when you download the NordVPN software. In our opinion, the NordVPN VPN client is more than enough to download files anonymously. But if you want to add the proxy server to your BitTorrent client, read our NordVPN SOCKS5 proxy setup guide. Servers. NordVPN has more than 5300 servers, spread across 60 countries. But BitTorrent traffic is not allowed in all of them. They optimized servers for torrenting in some countries only. Such servers were built to be faster than the standard ones. They have no bandwidth limits and can provide much faster download speeds. It’s easy to find those servers; you just have to go to the P2P tab and select one either manually or automatically. To know more about these methods, read our in-depth guide on connecting to NordVPN’s P2P servers. Features. NordVPN’s features are directly related to security, helping you increase your online safety. We will go through the ones that have a direct impact on the torrenting experience. Internet Kill Switch. The kill switch feature suspends your Internet connection if the VPN goes down and stops protecting you. It guarantees that your identity doesn’t leak while the VPN is offline. Although NordVPN never disconnected during our tests, it’s always good to activate this option. If you want to know more details about it, such as how to enable it, you can read our NordVPN kill switch guide. DNS Leak Protection. NordVPN uses its own DNS servers, making a DNS leak impossible unless the user takes action and changes the default settings. It’s good to see this option. Some VPN services use your default DNS servers, leaving you open to snooping by whoever hosts them (hint: it’s often your ISP!). Auto-connect. There is an option to connect to a server whenever you turn the VPN on, or even when you turn your computer on. This will eliminate the risk of forgetting to turn the VPN on before starting your torrent download and avoid identity leakage. Check out our instructions on how to start NordVPN automatically to learn how to do it properly. CyberSec. The CyberSec tool is a new addition that has the goal of preventing ads and bad scripts from loading on your browser. At a first glance, it’s not directly connected to torrents, but the truth is that it can make your life easier in torrent sites that are full of intrusive popups. If you’re interested in this feature, head over to our post about the CyberSec tool. Security Tests. To ensure that the VPN software and its features work without flaws, we conducted several tests. Before we start, here is the IP address of the VPN server. This way, you can match it with our test results. Torrent address detection. First, we looked for IP leaks while a torrent file was being downloaded. Here’s the IP that the ipMagnet tool identified: Torrent DNS leak test. After that, we verified the BitTorrent client’s DNS request to verify if the leak prevention feature works properly. Besides the results we are showing you, there were other tests. We performed them for several days, using different testing tools, and downloading various torrent files. We didn’t register any identity leaks during our tests. The IP address detected by the testing tools we used, such as “ipMagnet”, was always the one from NordVPN. Torrent Speed Test. While NordVPN struggled with speed in its first years, it quickly grew past that issue. We ran a torrent test with a good number of seeds, and you can see the results below: By rule of thumb, you should always allow about 10% bandwidth to be consumed by the VPN. That’s because its encryption consumes resources. When connected to one of the P2P servers, it hit 7.1 Mbps , comparing to 7.4 Mbps without a VPN connection. That’s better than the average and a very acceptable speed difference, making NordVPN much faster than most VPNs out there. Connectivity. The software is compatible with the major Operating Systems and devices, such as Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Linux, Android, etc. Regardless of the platform, users are allowed to connect to the service six times at once . For example, you can protect your three laptops, smartphone, smart TV, and gaming console simultaneously. This also makes it possible to share your NordVPN subscription with your family members. Price. Like most VPN providers, the longer you subscribe, the cheaper it gets. The 2-year plan price is the longest one, meaning it’s also the most affordable. Regardless of the subscription you choose, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee . That means that if the service doesn’t work out for you, there’s always the possibility of requesting a refund within thirty days of purchasing the software. Current deals. As you can see in the image above, NordVPN is running a summer promotion. They lowered the price of the 2-year deal down to $3.67. On top of that, they are also giving away three extra months for free. Pros and Cons of Torrenting with NordVPN. There are a lot of things we like in NordVPN, but there are also things that could improve. Let’s go over the advantages and disadvantages of downloading torrents with NordVPN. After many torrent downloads with NordVPN, these are things that made it stand out. The company’s location in Panama is ideal. Torrenters may rest assured that their activity information won’t end up in the wrong hands. They were audited by one of the biggest auditing firms to show that they do not save logs. We liked the fact that they requested this audit, to prove they have nothing to hide. There are many high-speed P2P dedicated servers, which guarantees fast torrent downloads. The software comes with essential features that make torrenting safer, such as a kill switch and DNS leak prevention. As that wasn’t enough, they even go the extra mile by including two different types of kill switch. Just like every other VPN software, some aspects need improvement when it comes to torrenting. These are the things we didn’t like: Sometimes, establishing a connection to a server takes a bit longer than what it should. It’s not a major thing, but it can take a few extra seconds compared to other popular VPNs. There are very few torrent optimized servers in places like Africa and the Middle East. For example, there is only one option for the entire African continent. Users from that continent can still connect to servers around the world. The problem is that speed would suffer a lot because of the distance. Conclusion. NordVPN did a great job hiding our torrenting activity and keeping it private. It passed every security test we performed without a single leak. The creators are clearly passionate about their work, and they’ve gone out of their way to demonstrate that they are, indeed, legitimate VPN providers that fully support P2P downloads. When it comes to ease of use, torrenting with the protection of NordVPN was a breeze. Their P2P optimized servers are easy to identify, and most importantly, they are reliable and fast. In conclusion, we recommend NordVPN for users concerned about their privacy and looking for a reliable torrenting experience. In our opinion, it’s one of the best VPNs for torrenting for users in America and Europe. However, users in Africa and the Middle East will have limited server options, and their best bet will be to find an alternative provider.