QBittorrent & VPN Deal

[freyacartinsmith]

I'm looking to set up qBittorrent for safe and private downloads. However, I've heard using a VPN is crucial. Can anyone recommend a good VPN deal that works well with qBittorrent?

[rdalek]

I use Surfshark. I'm a Linux user and their app doesn't install on my OS so I use OpenVPN to manage Surfshark. I'm sure if you use Windows or a distro of Linux they support, it is easier. Still it works well. I think you can get either one year or two year deals. I have fiber internet and the VPN keeps up pretty good speed wise.

One thing, if you can't use their software and the killswitch feature, set QB to only use the network device that is created for the VPN, tun0 in my case. That way if the VPN goes down, QB stops traffic as it loses its connection to the internet, as far as it can see anyway.

Reminds me. I need to renew mine pretty soon. I went with the two year deal.

To be honest tho, except for those cheap or free VPN providers, they all about the same. Just get one that is popular and maybe has some feature that you want that others may not. A Google search for 'best VPN 2024' will likely give you some comparisons. That way you can weigh one against the other, feature wise.

[bob2306]

One thing, if you can't use their software and the killswitch feature, set QB to only use the network device that is created for the VPN, tun0 in my case. That way if the VPN goes down, QB stops traffic as it loses its connection to the internet, as far as it can see anyway.

I'm paranoid enough than I also block all internet traffic through the Ethernet device to doesn't need to go through it.

[Peter]

I'm looking to set up qBittorrent for safe and private downloads. However, I've heard using a VPN is crucial. Can anyone recommend a good VPN deal that works well with qBittorrent?

- Make sure it has port forward capability. You can ask their support, or find that out on their website.
- Windscribe works fine but they are not cheap.
- Private Internet Access is way cheaper, but they have been purchased a few years ago and been getting shadier and shadier. Maybe they are still good, I don't know.

[bob2306]

- Make sure it has port forward capability. You can ask their support, or find that out on their website.

Or try it without - port-forwarding is much less important than it used to be.

What I would advise is a shared IP address (which is actually a feature of cheap VPNs). Without this it's possible that other internet activity through the VPN might leak information about your identity. If the IP address is shared that leakage is unlikely to stand-up in court.

[LilTroy]

Currently I would recommend either ExpressVPN or Proton VPN Plus but they're more expensive than many of the others. Their respective track records are strong and most importantly they operate out of privacy-friendly jurisdictions outside of the "5/9/14 Eyes" countries' reach. Both have already been proven in court to not keep user logs (nothing that's identifiable anyway). ExpressVPN's servers also don't contain hard drives meaning there's no secondary/persistent storage. They run only on RAM. Both services have been independently audited, recently, and on multiple occasions. While Express' client app isn't open source their custom Lightway VPN protocol is. Proton VPN's client is fully open source. Express doesn't offer port forwarding but you don't need it unless you plan to create torrents and seed files all the time. Even then qBittorrent's built-in hole punching will still enable you to do it. Proton does offer port forwarding, just 1 randomly assigned port, but that's enough for torrenting. Both providers use shared IP addresses which is exactly what you want. It enhances privacy significantly. They're also fast, especially Express, and both are constantly tuning and expanding their network infrastructure to improve performance & availability. As for transparency reports both publish them but only Proton has a warrant canary. However, it's been argued that warrant canaries are largely ineffective. They're still nice to have though.

Need the WireGuard (WG) protocol? Proton VPN Plus has it. They even have a modified version of WG that runs over TCP for use on networks that block UDP entirely. Some highly restrictive corporate networks do this. Generally, though, you'd want to use UDP for tunneling all of your traffic to avoid an issue known as TCP meltdown (TCP-over-TCP tunneling). Lastly, both services have extensive multi-platform support including dedicated mobile apps. Express even offers a router app if you want to extend its protection to your entire network instead of having to provision each individual device. Every host on your network can be covered and it only counts as a single concurrent connection.