pissed at the new amazon prime ads thing? ideologically opposed to paying for prime in the first place? just plain broke?
you don't owe me an explanation. i'm not the police. i will never be the police.
here's how you torrent without getting caught in 2024, including setting it up to be as unobtrusive to daily PC use (incl. gaming) as possible.
use at your own risk, im an amateur like you, yada yada. check comments to see if others have added anything.
1. get a vpn
i recommend protonvpn. the free tier does not allow P2P, but its paid tier is less than a single streaming service subscription. them's the brakes if you want a truly secure vpn, and trust me, you want a truly secure vpn if you'll be doing this stuff.
install the protonvpn client on your pc. i'd recommend setting it to open when your PC starts. configured properly, proton will silently open in your tray and connect to a random server without so much as a peep. you won't even know it's there.
don't worry, we'll set it up so it doesn't fuck with your other programs.
2. get a torrent client
this is up to preference, but not really. qbittorrent is the only good one for people that don't hate themselves.
don't use utorrent. it is adware and your privacy when using it is dubious.
3. make it so your vpn only applies to your torrent client
for protonvpn this is pretty easy. open Settings and go to the connection tab. set Protocol to Wireguard.
VPN accelerator is up to your preference. we will configure the torrent client so that drops don't matter. it's probably a good idea if you leave your pc on for a long time.
go ahead and turn moderate NAT off. you don't need it if you're setting it up like this.
then, go over to the next tab (Advanced) and scroll down to Split Tunneling. Turn it on and select the second option ("only included apps/IPs will...")
hit Add App and select the executable for your torrent client. make sure it's checked in the list. you are not done yet. do not stop here.
3a. make it so your VPN also captures one of your browsers (optional)
some ISPs block some torrent sites, and also it's probably just a good idea to use a vpn to access them. but, you probably don't want to use a vpn for everyday tasks because it'll fuck up your location services for google, weather, etc. so my solution is to install a browser that you'll only be using for torrents and other vpn traffic.
i'm a chrome user so i installed firefox. go ahead and get whatever browser set up to your liking. i recommend installing UBlock Origin given The Way torrent sites Be.
then just repeat step 3 to add your browser to the split tunneling list.
4. torrent client failsafe
vpns are not infallible. you need to make sure that if your VPN drops, or crashes, or you forget to open it, you don't get yourself in hot water with your isp.
thankfully, torrent clients have something in place for this. i'll just be covering qbittorrent but it should be similar in other clients.
first, restart your PC. I know, I know. your chrome tabs can be recovered. when i did this the Proton network adapter didn't show up until after a reboot so just... bare with me, mkay?? free movies!
then, open qbittorrent, go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced.
Set Network Interface to ProtonVPN.
5. test it
don't be stupid. make sure it works before you start torrenting things.
go ahead and make sure proton is connected to a region that you can tell at a glance is not yours. open ipleak.net. it should show this foreign region as your IP.
if you did step 3a, open ipleak in both your main browser (daily use) and your torrent browser. the IPs shown in the two browsers should be different; your torrent browser should show the region you chose in proton and a different ip from your main browser, which should be your real ip/location.
hit "activate" under torrent address detection and download the magnet link as instructed. open it in qbittorrent. hit ok. the torrent is a dummy file and will not download, so don't worry about where you put it.
as you can see, the torrent ip shows as being in Brazil. i am not in brazil. it's like magic. if nothing is happening after a few seconds, you may need to force the download to start (right click -> force start)
now you're done.
congrats, you can safely torrent now. still need to exercise common sense and web literacy in a lot of regards but there's only so much i can remotely instill you with. i'm not sure where cohost stands on linking to stuff like this but there's a subreddit related to something torrenting is used for, and they have a really good megathread with all kinds of resources-- including information on how to stay safe and a list of sites to avoid.
go forth and take what's not yours
Just FYI if you use a VPN on a private tracker you're likely to get autobanned.
But the whole point of using a private tracker is so you DON'T need to do things like VPN fuckery in the first place. They also have this written pretty obviously in the rules when you sign up. I'm still posting about it because that ban will come VERY fast.