If you are a sporadic torrenter, you might do well with a torrent-friendly VPN. But if you are a serious torrenter, you’ll have to take it to a new level.
VPNs consume your valuable resources — your computer’s CPU, memory, bandwidth, and ISP’s data plans. Plus, the VPN encryption overhead puts a significant toll on your download speed.
On the other hand, a Seedbox is like literally sitting down with someone else’s powerful computer plugging it into a high-speed data center in another country, and starting downloading torrents. That means you can leave your computer and home Internet alone, stay anonymous, and let someone else do the torrenting job.
Table of Contents
- The Cons of Torrenting with a VPN.
- What are the cons of VPNs when torrenting?
- Torrenting with a VPN?
- Torrenting with a Seedbox.
- Why use a Seedbox for torrenting?
- Final Words.
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Torrenting with a VPN.
Nowadays, VPN providers have thousands of servers distributed worldwide and provide many services, such as double encryption, unblocking tailored geographical content, unblock censorship, and more.
And course VPN and torrents can also be used together. But still, knowing that a VPN provides privacy, is it functional and safe to torrent via a VPN?
What are the Cons of VPNs When Torrenting?
- VPNs dynamically change IPs. Due to having many servers (and users sharing it), some VPNs, especially large ones, will force you out of this server into another one. A new server sets you with a new random IP and disconnects you from P2P swarms. Unfortunately, some private trackers still track your sharing ratio using IP, making it impossible to keep a good sharing ratio.
- VPNs consume local resources. The VPN client uses your home connection, your bandwidth, it consumes your data plan, your processor, and your memory. The VPN server acts just like an extension to another geographical place, which is also able to encrypt/decrypt.
- VPNs choke your download/upload speed. The VPN client performs encryption/decryption on every IP packet going from/to the Internet. So when you download or upload torrents via your local desktop client, your VPN is encrypting/decrypting every single packet. The VPN encryption overhead limits the speed significantly.
- Some VPNs prohibit torrenting. Although VPN’s main idea is to protect your identity, some VPN providers will still collect logs and monitor P2P traffic going out from their servers. This is because some of their servers are located in countries with strict policies about data. Some VPNs might even cooperate with DMCA notifications and forward your DCMA letters.
Torrenting with a VPN: What to do?
Torrenting with a VPN on a private tracker (with sharing ratio rules) is not a good idea, especially if you’re on a data plan. As you would have to download/upload multiple copies of your torrent file, hurting your local Internet data caps. It is better to use VPNs on public trackers, where there are no seeding ratio requirements— however, make sure that the VPN is torrent-friendly and that they are not keeping logs.
Some VPNs service providers offer dedicated public IP for an additional cost. This dedicated IP will prevent your torrent client from being continuously disconnected and forced to another random IP.
As an additional precaution, make sure that you can pay the VPN service with cryptocurrency. This will ensure that you don’t give your ID and real name.
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Torrenting with a Seedbox.
Seedboxes were initially created to solve the issue of sharing (seeding) ratio. With a seedbox, your home Internet data plans and your computer will not be absorbed by the resource-intensive process of seeding torrents. Instead, you’ll outsource this part of torrenting, in other words: “Seed” to a third-party “Box.”
With a Seedbox, you’ll download/upload from the third-party box. And use your home connection to download what you want, whenever you want, using secured transfering methods, like SFTP or FTPS. And if you don’t want to download it to your home, you can stream media right from the seedbox.
So, Why use a Seedbox for torrenting?
- They are made for P2P seeding and torrenting. Seedboxes were created for torrenting, so they usually allow both public and private trackers. Their data-centers are located in countries with friendly data policies. That means you’ll not get any DCMA letter.
- They improve the sharing ratio. Private trackers are wonderful communities that have tailored and massive media libraries. These communities are also usually safer than public trackers; they are not chased down by copyright trolls or DCMA. But to be a part of these private tracker communities, you would need to maintain a high sharing (seeding) ratio. A seedbox can be left alone, uploading content while improving your seeding ratio.
- They run 24/7 without using your resources. A seedbox uses its own high-speed data center with its local ISP, so you don’t have to worry about data plan caps, exhausted resources, or even utilities. With a seedbox, you are using someone else’s hardware, instead of your own. A Seedbox is always on — connected, sharing, and transfering torrents 24/7.
- They can download dead or unhealthy torrents. Some seeders of rare torrent files might sporadically connect a P2P swarm. So the chances of catching those sporadic connections are increased by staying always on. Since a seedbox is still on and the torrent client is frequently rescanning torrent files and attempting to find seeders, it is more likely to resurrect a dead torrent. Other ways to revive unhealthy torrents are by updating tracker server lists and enabling DHT.
- You can automate torrent downloads. Seedboxes come with torrent automation applications such as CouchPotato, Sonarr, Radarr, and Jackett. You can just set up an RSS feed for searching, and let these applications automatically download the latest TV shows, movies, or music.
- They provide an extra level of speed. A significant benefit of seedboxes is that they are fast! You are downloading from co-located high-speed data centers with connections ranging from 1Gbps to 10Gbps (instead of using your local resources, as is the case of a VPN). Also, many seedboxes use similar high-speed data center providers, so that means there will be many nearby peers, making speed even faster.
- More anonymity and security. When transferring torrents with a seedbox, your local IP address is not shown in the swarm (but only the seedbox’s). When you connect and manage the seedbox, you use secure web admin and then SFTP or FTPS to transfer to your local PC.
- You can host a streaming server. You can leave all your media on the remote seedbox and access it anytime, anywhere, and from any device. Streaming software such as Plex can turn your seedbox into a powerful streaming server. That means you will be able to stream your media content anywhere from any device. Long gone Netflix!
- Pay with Bitcoin. They usually take alternative payment methods. Seedboxes understand the need for online privacy, so they typically take cryptocurrencies and Paypal as alternative payment methods.
Final Words
Although VPNs provide full privacy, they were not designed for constant massive downloading and uploading. VPNs do not only create a bottleneck in your bandwidth, but they also use your home Internet connection. So that means your download/upload torrent speeds with a VPN will be a lot slower, than without a VPN.
Seedboxes are on an entirely different level when it comes to performance, speed, security, and extra features for torrenting. They are physically located in high-speed data centers so that you can expect 100x speeds.
A seedbox leaves your computer and home Internet alone. You can use your computer for other purposes and outsource intensive torrenting to someone else. Additionally, storing everything on the seedbox guarantees that you can access it anywhere and anytime remotely.