this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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They're no longer good for torrenting as they removed port forwarding at the beginning of the month.
Port forwarding isn't necessary for torrents......
However, I would agree that they're not the best for torrenting, Mullvad is for truly paranoid people that are REALLY concerned about privacy. If you just want to torrent without getting letters from your ISP, cheaper options like Nord, Proton, and PIA are fine.
It's necessary if you want to seed anything or join a private tracker. Torrenting without port forwarding just leads to a bunch of dead torrents and the inability to share/download that content in the future.
Eh? What does port forwarding have to do with dead torrents? I was under the impression that trackers tracked your IP to see if you were seeding, and that doesn't require port forwarding. Also, I'd argue that your private tracker isn't private enough if you need a VPN to use it. I use one private tracker without a VPN to avoid all those issues, and the rest of my torrenting is on public trackers with a VPN. Seems to have worked so far.
If you don't have port forwarding, most other users can't make a connection to your computer. How that ends up leading to dead torrents is that you're reducing the size of the swarm by not seeding. Additionally, it may still show you as a seeder which can cause issues if you're the only user as nobody will be able to actually make a connection with you to download the file.
As far as private trackers go, I have no reason to 'trust' any of them since I don't personally know any of the people running them. You can choose to turn your VPN off with them even though you already have one running for public sites, but I don't see how that benefits you in any way. It's just a needless risk.
Lol port forwarding is a needless risk too, and I still don't get how not having it on keeps me from seeding properly. I seed torrents just fine?
EDIT: reading up on it, it sounds like it slows seeding down but still allows others to connect to you. I'm okay with that, honestly: https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/p6h7em/answered_why_you_do_need_portforwarding_for/
Maybe keep reading.
They even had a special FAQ-like section for users such as yourself right before the above quote.
Can you explain the risk of port forwarding through a VPN?
Port forwarding is inherently unsafe because it opens your network to outside connections from anyone that knows which port to ping. Having a VPN does nothing to mitigate that threat, it just gives you a different IP.
I think you need to do a lot more research because you aren't opening your network to anything with this.
Forwarding a port is literally opening your network. It doesn't matter what the reason for doing so is, whether it's torrenting or gaming. That's why it's called both "forwarding" or "opening" a port depending on who you ask.
It's a small risk, but it's a risk. If you open a device on your network to the Internet through a forwarded port, there's a real possibility that somebody will find you and attack you. There are bots that spend their entire life looking for common open ports on random IP addresses. And the ports used for torrenting are probably some of the most common. Best security practice for any network is NOT to open a port, but rather to find an alternative method of accessing things outside your network, like a VPN or reverse proxy. In the case that you do need to open a port, that device should be isolated on your network, preferably in its own VLAN.
The port you're opening is with your VPN provider not your local network hence why you need a VPN with port forwarding.
You sure? I assumed you had to open a port in both.
100%. The port gets opened on the VPN, nothing on your router (which is a risk). You input this VPN port into Qbittorrent (or whatever your torrent client is) and then people can connect to you. Without this, in QBit specifically, the little icon at the bottom of the window showing your connection status will be red (no connection) or yellow (limited connection) and as I said earlier, you won't be able to participate in private trackers since they won't show you as connectable.