What is torrenting and how to find the best VPN for torrent?
Are you wondering what is torrenting and how to find the best VPN for torrent services such as Bittorrent and uTorrent?
In this guide, you will find out what is torrenting, some of the dangers of torrenting and how you can torrent in peace with a VPN.
What is torrenting: how does it work?
What is torrenting and how to find the best VPN for torrent? Torrent is one of the most well-known ways of sharing files across the internet, which is also known as “peer-to-peer file sharing” or P2P for short.
Is torrenting illegal? Technically, it’s not as the action is very similar to sharing files with your friends but the items that you share may be illegal if they are copyrighted material.
These copyrighted items could include movies, episodes, songs or albums that are commonly shared through torrent.
You might be wondering how such huge files are shared across the Internet. Here’s how:
1) The file is broken up into many bits and stored in other computers
When a user uploads a file to a Torrent program such as Bittorrent or uTorrent, the program’s protocol breaks this file into many small parts.
These parts are then distributed to other computers and devices who are also downloading the same file through the Torrent program.
This helps many devices be part of the network where this file is stored in bits and pieces so as to distribute bandwidth.
2) The file is stitched together by the Torrent program when a user downloads a torrent
When a user downloads a torrent from a torrent website such as The Pirate Bay, that torrent contains information of where the other bits and pieces of the associated file are.
When that user uploads that torrent to a program such as Bittorrent or uTorrent, that program -- also known as a client -- begins stitching together this file based on the information of the other bits and pieces distributed across the network of devices.
As such, all devices are working together in this act of uploading and downloading files. It is good practice to ensure once you have downloaded a file, that you keep the Torrent file running in your client so that your device helps to ease the load of file-sharing activities happening elsewhere.
What is torrenting: The dangers of torrenting while unprotected
Although this act of file-sharing can seem harmless, knowing what is torrenting and how to find the best VPN for torrent comes with a huge downside: that this activity is detectable if your Internet connection is public.
As we mentioned earlier, the act of torrenting itself is not illegal because it is an activity of sharing files -- pretty similar to you sharing files through Bluetooth, Google Drive or even through thumb drives and hard drives.
However, the majority of content being shared via torrenting are copyrighted material such as e-books, movies, TV shows and songs.
Distributing such copyrighted material is illegal in many countries where copyright laws are respected.
If you distribute such files, you are exposed to several dangers:
1) Your Internet Service Provider may track down your IP address
Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is the company that supplies you with Internet access.
If your ISP receives a request from the copyright holder of a certain piece of content to track down who has been distributing these files, your ISP will be able to spot your activity by noting your IP address.
An IP address is similar to a physical address but it denotes the location where your Internet requests are coming from.
Once your IP address is uncovered, your ISP could find out more information tied to it on their customer management system such as your name and address.
A similar case happened in Singapore when copyright holders of the movie Dallas Buyers Club issued letters of demand to subscribers of 500 IP addresses for alleged illegal downloading of the movie.
2) You may be fined or sent to court for distributing copyrighted content
According to copyright laws from country to country, you may receive legal punishment for participating in the distribution of copyrighted content.
In the UK, the harshest of punishments can go up to 10 years’ jail time for such offences.
As such, it is important to safeguard yourself if you do decide to download torrents.
There are two ways to go around it:
- Download torrents that are free of copyright restrictions such as open-source software or content that is deemed to be in the public domain
- Get a VPN app to change your IP address and bypass your ISP
What is torrenting: How to find the best VPN for torrent
Now that you know what is torrenting, it is simple to figure out how to find the best VPN for torrent. Here are a few steps to download a VPN app that works for torrent:
Step 1: Go to your phone’s App Store, whether it be the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. If you are using a Mac, go to the Mac App Store.
Step 2: Type in the word “VPN Vault” on your App Store’s search bar. We recommend the VPN Vault app by Appsverse as it has a specific server based in Switzerland that supports P2P file transfers.
Step 3: Open the VPN Vault app and press the On button. That’s it.
The VPN Vault app gives 200MB of free data daily as part of its free plan.
What’s more: if you have a student email ending with .edu, you can get 50MB of additional free data every day just by registering your email address in the app.
Simply download VPN Vault using these links:
VPN Vault app for iOS
VPN Vault app for Android
VPN Vault app for Mac OS
VPN Vault app for Windows OS
Now that you know what is torrenting, download the VPN Vault app today and find out how to find the best VPN for torrent. Try it for yourself!