Ive thought about torrents but they require a paid vpn from what i know? I dont really want to pay, which is why im thinking about piracy because im not made of money and cant afford a vpn. Im just not sure if its possible to be safe and sail the seven seas all for free?
What would you advise i do? what did you do when starting out?
Where are you based? You might decide whether you think torrent without VPN is too risky based on the local law. I’m in a country where there is a three strikes system, with two notices before risking a fine, I’ve used torrents for circa 20 years without VPN and I’m still waiting to receive my first notice.
Seems like a lot of people replying need to work on their reading comprehension…
Use private trackers only. Public trackers are way easier to identify you on.
Disable DHT, PeX and Local Peer Discovery in your BitTorrent client. This will prevent you connecting to random public peers.
If you’re just interested in movies/TV I recommend streaming sites with an adblocker. Just so much easier and safe enough. Find sites on fmhy.netIt depends where you are in the world. Some countries care more about copyright laws. Sometimes you can get away with torrenting with little to no consequences.
Otherwise, stick to direct download and streaming websites. There are a lot of great sites for movies and tv shows. They tend to come and go. Just remember to install an ad blocker. For games, you’ll need to look at direct downloads. Some good links in other comments.
Anecdotal; but I spent 5ish years pirating via torrents from my home in Canada. Never once used a VPN and received an emailed copyright notice forwarded through my ISP about once every 3-5 days.
They never went further than that. The ISP isn’t permitted to give out my personal contact info short of a court order, and the copyright holder(s) can’t be bothered to pursue it further to get that info.
As long as you never reply to the notice; all they have is an IP, a time stamp, and a copy of the letter they sent to the ISP. They don’t know who I am to drag me to court; so first they’d have to sue the ISP for that info. Even then, tieing one specific individual to an entire IPs traffic is next to impossible. Was it the IPs subscriber? Another person in the household? A guest? Someone with unauthorised access? Too many variables/possibilities to prove ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ in a court of law.
Now a days however I use usenet. $12/year for an indexer, and ~$5/month for access to a usenet provider/server. Fast reliable downloads that always complete within 5min. No more waiting on slow or seedless torrents that potentially take days before giving up and trying another. This is all done though an ssl connection to a private server, so there’s nothing to snoop/get reported for.
Find someone in your circle of friends who can give you an invite to a private tracker or use usenet. Also vpns arent necessarily “required”. It will depend on your area and your download setup.
You can also find private torrent sites with temporary open registration on opentrackers (mostly new ones but not only). There you can find invite forums (so mind your stats).
