Torrenting is a popular file exchange protocol based on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology.
A user can download torrent files, being media and contain audio, movies, and TV shows, games, applications, and more.
You can find many millions of torrent files, and while they are accessible, many users are unaware of the dangers they face by governing bodies as much as they are from hackers.
Here, you can find the best free VPNs to hide your identity out of sight and if a free VPN is worth using when torrenting?
Why you need a VPN for Torrenting?
Although there is still a grey area for downloading torrents, and mainly because the act of torrenting or the torrenting clients isn’t illegal yet, downloading copyrighted material is illegal.
In some instances, it may be hard to understand which files are legal and which ones have the copyright trolls chasing them, and then you accidentally download something you shouldn’t.
For the most part, consequences are not as severe as they could be. However, as time goes on, the entertainment industry carries on fighting torrenting. Here we get the copyright infringement notices or Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices.
IP addresses are an instant lead back to you, and your activity. In the case of Australia, this information may be held for two-years.
Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are increasing in popularity. It’s not all, for geeks, privacy-conscious, or businesses any longer. Regular internet users who wish to make their online presence secure are using them.
Using a VPN for torrenting will protect you. In some regions like Australia, the UK, the USA, Canada, Sweden, Norway, and New Zealand can face punishable offenses. Here you need to be sure your VPN has a zero log policy.
With a VPN in use, any third party cannot figure out your IP address, and they end up with a virtual IP used by the VPN service provider.
What is the Best Free VPN for Torrenting?
1. Hide.me
Hide.me is a completely free VPN headquartered in Malaysia, so it is not based within the Fourteen Eyes Alliance, and it allows torrenting. You have nothing to sign up to, so your identity cannot be divulged.
You have five server locations when free, and these are the US East, US West, Canada, the Netherlands, and Singapore. You can use all Hide.me’s servers for torrenting except the US-based ones.
Hide.me offers 10GB of data per month to free users, which is enough to share a few movies with your friends and several TV shows when torrenting.
Reconnecting to servers can take a while, and if you are using less than a reliable internet connection, you may have to search for a server once you connect.
Hide.me does offer an automatic kill switch and IP leak protection; therefore, your IP address and activity won’t be exposed when disconnected from the VPN.
It also uses 256-bit AES encryption to keep you safe and secure as the best free VPN torrent option.
- 10GB free data per month
- Torrent friendly servers side from the ones in the USA
- 256-bit AES encryption
- Works with: uTorrent, BitTorrent, Vuze and Deluge
- Supports: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and others
2. Tunnelbear
TunnelBear is user-friendly and great as a VPN torrent free option for beginners. It offers a choice of P2P-friendly servers around the world, and recommends its servers in the United States, UK, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, and Romania, while torrenting.
However, if you are located too far away from these locations, you may find speeds drop. Besides this, if you torrent heavily, then the 500MB of data per month may be too little. It will not be any good for movies but can suffice for one-off torrents of other content.
It is possible to get more data if you tweet about the company, yet another additional 1GB of free data still will not allow you to do too much.
Aside from this, TunnelBear does deliver high security and has been through an independent audit by cybersecurity experts. It uses military-grade encryption, a kill switch and no-logs policy, and other security features.
- 22+ worldwide servers
- 500MB of data per 30 day month
- Military-grade security and a no-logs policy
- Works with: uTorrent, BitTorrent, Bitport.io, Vuze, Deluge
- Supports Android and iOS, Windows, macOS, and browser support for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera
Read Our Full Tunnelbear Review
3. Speedify
Speedify makes use of innovative channel bonding technology. In theory, this can boost your connection speed while torrenting. However, once you begin torrenting, the 2GB may be over before you know it.
Speedify delivers in security and with its privacy policy. These are more than sufficient and comprise a strict no-logs policy, amongst other features. While the VPN only uses 128 GCM encryption, it uses current ChaCha or AES based encryption.
Torrenting will offer you one server that is based in Amsterdam, although they have over 50 global locations.
- 2GB of free data per month
- Uses Channel bonding for faster speeds
- 128 GCM encryption
- Works with: uTorrent, BitTorrent, Deluge and Vuze
- Supports: Android and iOS, Windows, macOS
4. ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN, in comparison, is a premium VPN. While it isn’t free, it comes with the best 30-day money-back guarantee in the industry.
Using this, you can freely download all the torrents you want while being safe from any prying eyes of the 5, 9, or 14 eyes alliance, your ISP, and any copyright trolls who may take an interest.
It offers the best military-grade encryption and security, unlimited bandwidth, and over 3,000 servers to choose from that are all optimized for P2P file sharing.
Even if streaming, you can find HD content runs without buffering in any region such as Australia from any distance.
Besides the excellent privacy, you have the best features to make sure your online experience is better than any other VPN can offer.
ExpressVPN also offers more than enough features under the hood like the kill switch to keep you safe from cybercriminals, and the likes of who are interested in trying to access your connection.
Even before the 30-day money-back guarantee is over, you will know it is the best torrent VPN you can torrent search. Use can also use the VPN, torrent free with no restrictions at any point.
Read Our Full ExpressVPN Review
FAQ
Are any free VPNs good for torrenting?
While the VPNs listed here are safe to use, most free VPNs will be slow and unreliable for torrenting, and in many cases, most of them can present more dangers than they save you from.
You often find that most free VPNs won’t support torrenting, and as a result, they may block P2P traffic. Free VPN’s offer some security, yet they can’t deliver the military-grade encryption or the other security features the best VPNs offer.
You will find you may not be as invisible, and your IP address isn’t leaking; it just isn’t being hidden. When this happens, your free VPN is allowing your IP address to be visible in a torrent swarm.
Free VPNs will limit data and bandwidth, and some can reduce speeds on purpose.
Do all VPNs allow torrenting?
Not every VPN will allow torrenting on their network because of the implications it can have when copyright protected content passes across their networks.
You can also find many only allow torrenting on specific servers, which are in countries that are slightly more torrent-friendly than most others are.
How do free VPNs make money?
Premium VPNs impose a modest subscription fee; however, free VPNs employ other monetizing strategies. At best, these are only annoying. Besides, at worst, they may even put you in even more danger.
It can mean having pop-up ads continuously appear while browsing, or it can mean limiting your bandwidth to the point that you have no other choice but to upgrade. Through the years, free VPNs have been selling user data, ignoring malicious software and viruses in their networks, and much worse.
Any time someone offers a free VPN service, you need to know there is always a catch. Nothing is ever totally free, and a VPN that claims it is most often is hiding something.
What are the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and Fourteen Eyes
The Five Eyes Alliance came about from the cold war as part of an intelligence-sharing agreement between the UK and the United States. At this time, it was there to decrypt Russian intelligence.
Later in the 1950s, three other countries join the fold in the form of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Now, five English-speaking countries were making up the Five Eyes Alliance. Since these days, the alliance has expanded on its activities, and now it encompasses mass surveillance of online activity.
The arrangement was a closely guarded secret between these five nations. It was only in 2003 when Edward Snowden leaked documents when working as an NSA contractor.
The leaked documents exposed widespread surveillance of citizen’s activities while online. They also highlighted the extent of which was more extensive than most people thought.
Furthermore, there are two more confirmed international intelligence-sharing agreements. We now have the Nine Eyes and Fourteen Eyes Alliances. While these are not as close-knit as the Five Eyes, they still hold many implications for the privacy of everyone.
Here’s a breakdown of the three alliances:
- Five Eyes: UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada
- Nine Eyes: Five Eyes + Denmark, France, Holland, and Norway
- Fourteen Eyes: Nine Eyes + Belgium, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Spain
The Nine Eyes and Fourteen Eyes Alliances are an extension to the original Five Eyes Alliance, and won’t have the same levels of information sharing. They do, however, play a large part in overall intelligence sharing.
You can find some other countries that are not included, yet are active participants such as Israel, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.
And Finally…
Torrenting is one of the most popular activities, yet is frowned upon by many. While there are many free VPN’s, none of them can protect you as much as a premium VPN can do.
To get the best experience while being safe, there is no other way to stay away from prying eyes than what the best VPN for torrenting and use in Australia can offer. Use the 30-days as a free trial and you can see the difference.
