Torrents are something that people just cannot do without these days. Although movie stars and musicians will preach about how it is degrading to their cause and why you should not indulge in this form of piracy, the fact that you save a lot of money by simply downloading what you want from a repository instead of going to the nearest store and purchasing it simply cannot be ignored. Applications like BitTorrent are required to run the torrent files and download the content you want.
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With so many news articles about how people’s privacy is not appreciated on the internet anymore circulating, there are very few of them about the dangers a user faces in being tracked and monitored by their BitTorrent activity. Fewer still are articles that tell you how to download torrent anonymously. As to why you need to anonymize your BitTorrent traffic, it is simply to prevent anyone from spying on your download history and notifying your ISP of your mischievous nature.
You all must have seen something written next to the seeds and peers options in the status pane regarding how many of them are you connected to in the swarm. A swarm is basically other users to whom you are connected while you download your file. The people in a swarm can see each other’s IP addresses.
Related Post: How to Download Torrents Anonymoulsy
If a hacker was to join a swarm, which is very often the case, then it is an easy ticket for him to know your IP address and thereafter your identity. Some agencies employ people to do this kind of a job to track down users who are illegally downloading something they do not want them to. This means that hiding your torrent activity is vital for your security.
Download Torrents Anonymously via VPN
The simplest way to go about it is using a VPN. Earlier, the most recommended VPN to use is HideMyAss Pro. It is a viable option for the long run. With the advent of HMA’s proxy service, things have improved a lot.
VPNs connect you to your internet using a different, which hides your true IP address from attackers. Since they do not keep any activity logs, it makes it useless for anyone to go to them and ask for your activity logs. Speeds may deter a bit, though. How much is the deterioration depends on your internet connection as well as the torrent you are downloading.
Encrypts your BitTorrent Traffic via Privte Internet Access VPN
Note that Privte Internet Access VPN only encrypts your BitTorrent traffic. All you need to do is subscribe to their service and follow these steps:
- Generate Proxy Password which would be used for the proxy activity. This will be different from the one you used to set up your account with Private Internet Access.
- Configure BitTorrent by going on Options> Preferences> Connection. Choose SockS5 under Proxy server and enter the following details:
- Proxy Type: Socks5
- Proxy Host: proxy-nl.privateinternetaccess.com
- Proxy Port: 1080
- Username: (enter username from the generate password step)
- Password: (enter password from the generate password step)
Conclusion
Using VPN is a good method to fend off people who want to monitor your torrent activity. The downsides are that it costs you some money, but that is worth the service you get in return. You can use both VPN service and Proxy servers, which encrypts all your traffic instead of only BitTorrent traffic. VPNs are good in that they offer better protection and speeds, but can be annoying as they can have issues with streaming services or take you to different web pages for the VPN’s country.
