Most VPN providers have a disclaimer or clause in their TOS to forbid the use of their services for P2P traffic of any nature (illegal or not). Learn how to find the proper P2P VPN provider and secure your downloads.
Table of Contents
What is a DMCA complaint?
A DMCA complaint or Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice is a notification to a company that they are either hosting or linking to copyright-infringing material. The notice asks for the removal of the copyrighted works.
When a VPN user downloads copyrighted materials (movies, books, etc.), then the IP of the VPN server can be seen by those who monitor illegal downloads (it’s another story who these persons/companies are) as the source of the download. Next, a DMCA notice is sent to the hosting provider of the specific VPN server. Finally, the complaint is forwarded to the VPN provider.
When a VPN provider receives a DMCA complaint, it needs to reply with the proper response and needs to take action to prevent these kinds of actions. In the case of repeated DMCA complaints, the hosting provider may terminate the contract with the VPN company.
Many VPN servers got suspended by server hosting providers due to DMCA complaints. That is why VPN providers are cautious when it comes to P2P downloading traffic.
What is a P2P VPN service?
A P2P VPN or torrent VPN provider is a VPN service that allows its users to download torrents while connected to VPN servers. These services are also called “VPNs for torrents.”
How does such a provider deal with the DMCA complaints? It is not a simple question to answer. Some of the VPN companies use their servers and somehow ignore the DMCA notices. Others have contracts with hosting providers from countries (Netherlands, Lithuanian, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Russia) where the legislation is more relaxed regarding the torrent downloads, or it is not strictly applied. The fact is that, in a way or another, the DMCA complaints don’t affect the users and neither the VPN providers.
>> Is torrenting with VPN legal?
A must-have: KillSwitch
An essential feature when it comes to VPN torrent downloads is the KillSwitch. You need to make sure the provider has it to protect your online identity.
The KillSwitch is a fail-safe mechanism that disables your Internet connection or closes downloading apps when the VPN connection drops. Thus, even if the VPN fails your real IP address will not be exposed.
The best torrent VPN services
Are there free VPN providers right for torrenting anonymously? The answer is … NO.
Thus, you need to take into consideration premium services. Take a look below to 7 VPN services that can be used for anonymizing your torrent traffic, torrent VPN services. They all offer fast download speed, unlimited bandwidth, simultaneous connections, access to SOCKS proxies, advanced protection against leaks (WebRTC leak, DNS leak, IPv6 leak), money-back guarantee.
PureVPN
PureVPN is a top VPN provider with hundreds of servers located all over the World. The torrent traffic is allowed on certain servers. The PureVPN Kill Switch is available for the Windows client and closes down all Internet activities if the VPN fails for any reason.
ibVPN
ibVPN is an excellent VPN for torrent as it offers P2P friendly servers located in the Netherlands, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Canada, Sweden, Lithuania, Russia, and Hong Kong. They even have a special package called “Torrent VPN.” Also, you may benefit from their StealthVPN, Double VPN and Onion over VPN servers. You may try it with the 6-hour free trial account and read our complete ibVPN review.
The ibVPN Kill Switch function is available to their Windows and macOS VPN apps. It closes certain apps from a has to be defined (e.g., torrent apps).
PrivateInternetAccess
Another good provider for torrent downloading protection is PIA or PrivateInternetAccess (read our complete PIA review). They have an interesting approach regarding p2p traffic: it is redirected to certain servers located in the Netherlands.
The Private Internet Access Kill Switch completely stops the Internet connection if you are disconnected from the VPN. The smart feature is that it reactivates regular internet access when you deactivate the Kill Switch mode or exit the application.
HideIPVPN
HideIPVPN provides a smaller number of servers in locations like the Netherlands, Canada, Poland. But they are fast and good for downloading. Application Killer option (Kill Switch) is also available.
NordVPN
An advanced approached for those interested in anonymizing their downloads is to use Tor over VPN. NordVPN is a VPN service that makes this approach accessible. Thus, you will not only be protected by the VPN but also bu the Tor network.
NordVPN comes with kill switch technology that instantly shuts down any site or software you specify in advance. No worries about the accidental exposure of sensitive data.
TorGuard
TorGuard is a highly secure VPN service with servers optimized for the best possible performance when downloading torrents. It works on any OS, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS and more.
IPVanish
Last but least, IPVanish can help you with the torrent downloads. It provides a lot of server locations and, as a top-tier VPN service provider, it provides very fast connection speeds.
Conclusion
If you are a regular user of BitTorrent or other torrent apps you surely need to get access to a VPN service. As mentioned above, not all VPN services allow torrenting through their servers. That is why I have compiled the above list. Also, there are other rules that you should keep in mind to download torrents safely. Enjoy!
Do you know other P2P VPN services?
Are you using a VPN while downloading torrents or another protection tool (like Peerblock)? Feel free to join the discussion below.
Not only do we “allow” peer to peer traffic, we encourage our customers to use our secure network for any protocol, any traffic, any port. We also have always offered only unlimited-access service – never charging our customers for using “too much” connectivity.
Coming up on two years of success in standing between our customers and the media cartel mercenaries. We’ve NEVER turned customer info over to anybody, NEVER disconnected a customer based on a threat, and NEVER blocked a port or website or protocol.
Fausty | torrentfreedom.net
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Try Freedur!! Freedur is the fastest VPN I’ve ever used. Fast, stable and cheap!
@Fausty | torrentfreedom.net – Does anyone know if this torrentfreedom thing is real or fake? Are they a real provider or do they keep/sell/hack/malware your information?
Hi, Think that you should have Black VPN on this list, great service and great price, Using it on my Mac with Viscosity, works perfectly, and much better and faster than my previous VPN provider. No connection drops so far, and have not noticed any speed decrease so far.
Keep in mind that Cyberghost is bound to German law, thus was forced by court to implement the possibility to log traffic. In their newsletter they stated the following:
“1. Wenn wir eine bestimmte Einwahl-IP bekommen, sind wir in der Lage
diesen User nach der Einwahl-IP zu selektieren und den Datenverkehr zu
überwachen.
2. Wir können den Zugriff auf eine bestimmte Internetseite
(beispielsweise eine Seite mit Kinderpornografie) überwachen und
feststellen, welche Einwahl-IP auf diese Seite zugreift.”
I translate:
1. Given a specific IP used for dialing into our network, we are capable of selecting this user and watch the data traffic.
2. We are able to log the access to a specific website (e.g. child porn sites) and find out which dial-in IP accessed this website.
In other words: Cyberghost DOES log traffic data IF authorities want them to do so.
Regarding torrentfreedom. Its slow as hell, I was stupid enough to follow internet hype and paid for a year. Forget about p2p, hell even simple web browsing seems like old 56k modem speed. What does that tells you?
I have found this torrent vpn service to anonymous downloading torrents.
Probably it will help something.
I’ve been using vpntunnel.se and their service is great. Fast speeds at a fair price!
This is a good selection of anonymous VPN service providers to anonyimize torrents. I have written several articles regarding anonymity and security on my blog which may be of some interest to other bloggers.
Thanks for this list.
Regards Anonymous VPN
For torrent downloading by vpn I use torrentvpn.com and I am very happy with speed and support. they have been the best among the several companies I have tried.
I use hideipvpn.com hideipvpn.com their servers located in Germany and NL alloow for p2p/torrent traffic without any limits. I have to say I am extremly happy with the servic. Servers are fast and stable + I got acces to british and american TV.
Anonyproz.com offers OpenVPN based VPN services with servers in US, Canada, France, UK, Malaysia and Romania. P2P and BitTorrent traffic is allowed with unlimited bandwidth and a pre-configured openvpn client installer is provided to connect to all servers for one price. No logs are left as a logs are automatically deleted every 5 mins.
They also have a custom IPfilter system to prevent connecting with with unwanted peers on P2P networks by using blocklists.
Free OpenVPN on fast, reliable servers.
Hostizzle.com is beta-testing its service, so offers encrypted OpenVPN connection for free/low cost.
Check out the website for more information, or comment here.
I have been using cryptocloud for the past year and have been impressed enough that I will stick with it for the coming year. For well seeded torrents, I routinely get 12Mbps out of my 15Mbps connection. With TCP or UDP access, its very useful for establishing a connection through the corporate firewall at the workplace. I like the OpenVPN capabilities, but they now also have PPTP for ease of use, which is good when traveling with my portable devices.
are these free of charge?
Never mind I guess not!
HMA sucks, they have discontinued my subscription cause some jackass tracked me to them, and they received a message of my downloading, and so I’ve been banned with lost funds, cause I’d purchased a year’s subscription, and have been only using them for 3mths. Ya this sucks, I’ve lost, so beware of these assholes, THEY SUCK!!!
@Anonymous – As mentioned in main article, CyberGhost has a free version; I’ve been using it for a couple weeks. Monthly limit is 1 GB, not 10 GB as mentioned above. Pay versions have varying levels of web storage and monthly limits. HQ (and majority of servers) is still in .de, but core operations were moved to .ro in June 2011. CG automatically anonymizes all internet connections, but by default does not allow outgoing email so it can’t be used for spamming. Under the Settings / Exceptions tab you can enter your email server to be excluded from anonymization, so you can send email while CG is running. Works well, speed is good.
just to second JCMC, HMA diabled my account as well. email excerpt: “We have received a file sharing complaint and the date, time, and IP address provided matches the date, time, and IP address your VPN account was in use; as a precaution we have disabled your account for violation of our terms of service.”
I set up service with HMA expecting to have my traffic anonymized and nothing logged. While HMA doesn’t log what you’re doing while using the service, they do log the fact that you connected at x time and were on one of their particular IP addresses until y time. The copyright holder contacts them and they look up the reported IP and use that connection log to see that it’s you, and then issue a DMCA notice to you. Eventually you’re canceled as these two guys have seen. I just signed up like 2 days ago, downloaded my first movie last night, and this morning woke up to a DMCA notice. I immediately killed the autorenewal and I’m sure I won’t be able to obtain a refund for the remainder of the month.
The gist of it is that since HMA is a US company, they too must comply with US law and that means logging at least who has an IP address and then turning that over if subpoen is issued, or at least notifying the user and possibly cancelling service if the copyright holder demands it. I’ll look for a good Finnish or other European VPN service that doesn’t even log the fact that *I* had one of their IP addresses.
HMA sucks for bittorrent…. I’m sure they’re useful for SOMETHING, but certainly not this.
HideMyAss are snitches plain and simple , they
A. Log All traffic.And Keep said logs.
B. turn over records to FBI, or anyone with a nasty letter from a lawyer.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/09/25/0415213/hidemyasscom-doesnt-hide-logs-from-the-fbi
So by having them you are Increasing you risks not lowering them.
It is very simple a Secure VPN DOSE NOT KEEP LOGS Except in a temp Folder on you PC!
http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/
This is a good guide to get a Real VPN. THAT DO NOT LOG!
I’m with the peeps with HMA issues, so disappointing. I was happy for the most parts until they disabled my account which is fine, I accept that but not knowing for 3 whole days why and not able to log to the website to check on billing etc, was too much AND reading about how they turned in logs to the FBI got me packing and looking for a different VPN…I skeptical though…lots to research.
DO NOT trust HMA because they don’t support downloading or uploading torrents, I’d pass on them if I were you. I’d do my research a little better before choosing a company to go downloading and uploading torrents. AVOID HMA as much as possible.
There are different concerns faced by BitTorrent and uTorrent users. Copyright infringement concerns however are the most considerable threats faced by torrent lovers. These issues often accompany severe consequences and may lead to lawsuits and legal settlements to be paid by the culpable.
I use Ivacy VPN for Torrent and P2P, as I like to binge-watch throughout my weekend. I would say that Ivacy is the best VPN service provider out there because it works flawlessly and provides buffer-free streaming. and Umlimitied torrenting without any geo-restricted .
ibVPN and PIA are the ones to go for. Affordable and effective!
PIA, PIA and PIA again. It works great, it has good KillSwitch, the speed is good, price is excellent!
NordVPN is my choice. They have a lot of servers that work great. And the apps are spectacular. Highly recommended!