Let’s not turn this into what the Reddit subreddit of Piracy has turned into and that’s an endless sea of questions that are all the same - “Do I need a VPN?”.
And the loud and vocal answer to such a question is - yes. Yes you do need a VPN for pirating. Nobody gets a VPN for casual use and I’m under the impression that VPN services know a lot of people are going to be going to them for pirating and not just accessing content out of their country. And it’s for that reason, is why I’m skeptical on entrusting my activity with the bigger VPN names available.
I use ProtonVPN myself, by the way.
Pirating under your raw IP address, only will set you up to get pegged by your ISP whether it’s in a short time or a long time. I’ve only ever gotten one single ISP letter in my entire 26 years of pirating and it was simply because I downloaded without a VPN. Well I was also downloading off of someone else’s network to take the fall, but I was confronted about it either way.
And I’ve gotten away with so much pirating because of my careful cautiousness when it comes to pirating. That and this applies to the United States, but the statue of limitations is 3 years when it comes to copyright infringement. So, good fucking luck to any ISP or so that wishes to try and nail me for something I downloaded 10 years ago, but I digress.
But a large part of me avoiding so much does contribute to having a VPN. So, yes, VPN is required. Please don’t ask anybody in the pirating community 100 questions that are all just ways to ask whether or not you need a VPN. You do.
What a bullshit post. The reality is that it depends on your circumstances. Most people in the United States do not need a VPN. Saying it’s required is horseshit.
I’ve been using private trackers for the past 16 years. I’ve never gotten any notices from my ISP, or been involved in any legal related issues since a lot of those sites have now been raided or shut down. The only time I use a VPN is for anything public tracker related. Obviously a VPN is good practice but I haven’t seen the need for it since a lot of trackers require you to sign up with your home IP address anyways.
Edit: Forgot to mention that my downloads are about a 50/50 split between downloading locally and on my seedbox.
I use a seedbox abroad and secure ssh to transfer stuff to my own server. Don’t see what additional security a vpn would give me.
I think you are giving an overly simplistic answer, to the point of being misleading.
Stating that you need a VPN for pirating is blatantly false. It’s perfectly possible to pirate without one. You can assume that people are asking if they should have one, but it is helpful to draw the distinction- including the why you believe they should use one. What does a VPN do, how is it helpful, what could happen if they don’t, etc.
Teach people, don’t just give them blind rules.
Yep. I am not a strong media consumer. For my purposes, something that I think is called scene release page with links to new episodes or movies that just came out posted on one click hoster pages, as well as streaming sites where I find ways to download the video instead of just streaming, is enough. For neither I use a VPN and probably never will.
Ahh, American ey?
Whether you really need a VPN depends on where you live. When in doubt, use one
You don’t need a VPN if you use I2P!
Summation of arguments below: if you know a lot, then you know if you know if you need a VPN or not.
If you don’t know if you need one, just get one.
I’m just lazy.
I can’t be bothered to wonder whether or not your specific flavor of piracy is tracking me or not, and I don’t really care to know.
VPN and just don’t worry about it.
If I hear my provider turned to shit, I move providers. Mullvad rn.
Mullvad isn’t good for torrenting anymore since they don’t have port forwarding but that probably doesn’t apply if you’re using Usenet, streaming, or some other form.
…I never used port forwarding with them and it just kinda works?
I pirate almost exclusively over Qbittorrent.
there’s just gotta be a leak somewhere, that ain’t normal…
If Mullvad is off, and I download a Pixar film, I will get a letter. I have.
If it isn’t, I won’t. I don’t.
shrug port forward or no port forward, the data still flows and my ISP can’t see it.
Without it, you won’t be able to connect to other peers unless they have port forwarding active. If enough people torrent without port forwarding, the whole system breaks down.
My props to the boys in Romania, then.
Mine works just fine with torrenting…
It does work without port forwarding but only because the person on the other end has port forwarding active. You can’t connect to anyone that doesn’t have it set up.
I think this comment should be pinned honestly.
Not everyone lives in the so-called first world. Here the ISPs don’t care about pirating.
Do I need a VPN to read this post?
Stop stealing my content by reading it! /s
I don’t use one. Never had.
Rants about not going to a big vpn because of privacy concerns, yet brings up one of the largest vpns still that their uses. Btw a vpn is only subjective to what you are doing, torrenting or any p2p activity you will need a vpn. Direct downIoads from datanodes, 1cloudfile or streaming from a site aka broflix, primeflix you dont need a vpn. Ive gone years without getting any notice from my isp with this information. Of course the websites will change over time but the info still stands true to this day.
I am not sure there is an argument of big vs small vpns. Small vpns certainly do not have the resource to fight media companies.
They were pointing out the discrepancy between OP claiming to evade big VPNs while using a big VPN.
Buy an ad.
Starting an AI company will also allow you to infringe copyrights on a massive scale without punishment
Copyright is whatever a corpo need to fuck the working class
I think there is a big misconception that the main use of a VPN is piracy when that is really only true when in a community of pirates. There are many legit uses for one as well.
For example, while VPNs are generally not a great tool for anonymity they can be a useful tool for privacy. One of the side effects of not trusting your ISP (or better put trusting your VPN over your ISP) with your data is it also makes it easier to torrent.
Its this relationship of trust that makes choosing a respected VPN (such as Mullvad, IVPN, or Proton) important over just choosing the cheapest provider with port forwarding.
Yeah I don’t really understand this post. I use a VPN pretty much 24/7 coupled with little snitch. I like controlling what information of mine is going out and who gets to come in.
