this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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I have been doing torrents + VPN for years now and thinking about switching.

Is usenet and debrid safe to use without a VPN in the UK? What about other piracy streaming sites?

From what I understand it's cheaper to use a VPN than have debrid + usenet + private indexers but I am not sure.

I have heard some questionable justifications as to why it's safer such as it being encrypted (torrents can also be encrypted). Are the index sites also safe? I have heard it both ways about this. Including people saying index sites are not encrypted which they normally are.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (10 children)

I'm in the US but this should still apply to the UK

Is usenet and debrid safe to use without a VPN in the UK?

Yes, as long as your provider offers SSL encryption. If you're using SSL encryption, the ISP can see what servers you're connected to but not what data is being transferred and that should be enough protection. If there isn't an option for SSL, you might want to use a VPN.

From what I understand it's cheaper to use a VPN than have debrid + usenet + private indexers but I am not sure.

It is cheaper, but availability and speed are what you're paying for if you sign up for a usenet provider.

I've been using both usenet and torrents for the past few years and never gotten a complaint. Usenet is my main source of everything. Only my torrent client itself is behind a VPN. All the arrs are unsecured and SABnzbd uses the SSL port for my usenet provider.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

I get what encryption does. I also understand why it doesn't make torrents safe. That's why I got irritated when people were trying to claim encryption is why usenet is safer, cause torrents have encryption too. Even if Usenet is safe the reasoning people used is bad.

I think I am the most worried about indexer sites as these are banned or blocked in my country. Weirdly enough the Usenet ones aren't blocked and I am wondering why. I believe they have some kind of loop hole.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

it's not that they sniff traffic for torrents because that's as you said encrypted it's that bad actors can join public trackers and gather all the ips and send them off to your isp if your on private trackers that you trust you don't need a VPN

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

This is also why peer block was invented. To stop people connecting to honey pots.

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