What is the most secure way to torrent?

NekoKamiGuru@ttrpg.network to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 71 points –

What is considered to be the best set of programs needed to download torrents securely ?

What torrent client is the best?

What VPN if any is the best?

What other programs if any is the best?

20

Use a VPN service with a proven track record to connect to a seedbox paid for with crypto, and download only from top-level private trackers. It's about as secure as you can get as a casual user.

In reality, though, a simple VPN is probably enough. Maybe not even that if you're in a country that doesn't give a shit.

It's nice to live in a country that doesn't give a shit. Where I am they'll reluctantly send you a letter because the media companies hassle them about it, but they hardly ever do more than that. A friend of mine got a letter and called his ISP, and they were just like "you should use a VPN or not seed so much, that's how they spot you" lol

I2P is the safest way.

Otherwise an open source client such qbittorrent or transmission on an open source os such as Linux with a VPN provider whose privacy policy you are happy with. The most important thing is to bind your torrent client to the VPN interface inside the torrent client settings.

There are more technical setups to automate parts of the process but learn to walk before you can run.

What is I2P?

Edit: thank you to everyone for pointing me in the direction of more info!

The invisible internet protocol. It's some version of the Darknet (like tor), but you can only communicate with hidden services through it (There are no exit nodes). Because of that your IP isn't involved in transmitting the data.

How is the download speed? I assumed torrenting on i2p would be slower so never tried personally

Last time I tried it, it was slow enough but it is did the job. Though it depends on the seeds, I suspect it is somewhat faster nowadays.

If you use a VPN and torrent on your own pc, bind it in your torrent clients settings!

Better yet, use docker so the torrent client doesn't even know other network interfaces exist

Seed box. That's all you need.