No one, in this entire thread, has thought of telling OP to sort by seeders. Are you all stupid? That's the most important thing
this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
112 points (98.3% liked)
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
60712 readers
559 users here now
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
Rules • Full Version
1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy
2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote
3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs
4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others
Loot, Pillage, & Plunder
📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):
🏴☠️ Other communities
FUCK ADOBE!
Torrenting/P2P:
Gaming:
💰 Please help cover server costs.
 |
 |
|---|---|
| Ko-fi | Liberapay |
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Check out Tribler. It uses a similar technology to Tor, but for torrents.
Kinda wish you'd be a little more detailed here.
So while everyone is telling you what to use. Let me tell you about how to behave as a pirate, least suggestively, not strictly. You need to not be a blip on the radar. Well how's that? You don't download gigs and gigs of data in a single day, you have to be a little more spread than that. Because even if you're safe under VPN and everything, if an ISP thinks you're being suspicious at any degree, they're gonna look into it.
I make sure I don't download more than I can chew and since I'm on a data cap of 350GB a month, it helps me enforce this. I've been at it for well over 25+ years so by this point, I've about acquired a lot of what I wanted so I'm in a little of my winding down period.
Try not to listen to the pirates that just boast about themselves and their habits, they're doing things you don't know about and are probably above your skill since obviously you claim to be very new at this.
I've been pirating for decades and never gave af how much I download in a day. Several hundred gigs on a weekend isn't unusual. Never got an ISP letter or had any issues, because I use private trackers.
@OP - These are the people I'm talking about.
Thanks for being a demonstrating example.
To be clear, I'm implying that you don't know what you're talking about and you are giving nonsense advice.
if they're on a VPN, it doesn't matter if their ISP looks into it. and with the plethora of streaming apps out there today, it's uncommon if a customer isn't downloading dozens of GB of data every day. just a single movie on netflix is several GB right there, and if you're the sort of person who is bingwatching shows, you're going through dozens, maybe even a hundred or more gigabytes daily if you're a real couch potato.
and if your ISP did care enough to investigate why you were using a VPN, all you would have to do it tell them you're watching netflix and there's nothing they can do to prove otherwise unless your VPN is shit and is leaking your DNS.
It kind of does matter. If you're hot-swapping in and out nearly all of the time for this and that, that is considered suspicious activity. If you knew a single thing about how networking works, they can see just about anything. Where you went, the unencrypted data that is sent and received and vice versa. They may not know exactly the file you downloaded or the page specifically you're at, but they can put two and two together if they think your activity lines up with the data it is coming from and to.
And once again, I have said, if you read at all, downloading gigs and gigs in a single day. You're bringing up streaming which is something they'd know and expect by now, so of course it's not going to bring attention. They also are aware that VPNs are advertised so much that they probably expect you to hop around to stream something you can't normally.
They're not going to directly ask you why you're using a VPN, they're more than likely going to ask you why are you using so much data up on X date and Y date? And then they could ask you what purpose did you have visiting this site at those dates too.
My point is about the amount of consumption you put into downloading many files, they don't give a damn about your streaming habits since they know very well we've been in the age of streaming for a while now.
Depends where you live and how enforced anti piracy laws are. I have downloaded stuff for 15 or so years through 3 or 4 different ISPs from static IP and have never had any issues.
Only thing that you could somehow call a protection is I do not use ISP owned DNS server.
I live in Italy and I'm in your same situation. Never bothered with VPNs and whatnot.
Been torrenting (and eMuling) for 20+ years, never received any letters.
Of course it depends on the country you live in
VPN to a nice safe country like Switzerland.
Look into selfhosting the Servarr stack along side QBitTorrent, pick a media player such as Plex or Jellyfin. Easy free streaming.
There are two schools of thought, and one of them is insanely wrong.
The current preferred method (by youngins) for pirating is by using a VPN provider to "hide" your torrent traffic, which is generally valid, but it's not a silver bullet and it's a wrong way to think.
The other is to use a seedbox, which is a remote server hosted in a country that doesn't recognize piracy as a crime to begin with...
The choice is clear. Especially when you consider to get a good private VPN you'll have to pay $5-10/mo. You may as well pay $5-10/mo to commit a crime where no one thinks its a crime, then you never have to worry about it. Using a VPN you can still get caught, it's just exceptionally rare because conditions have to line up perfectly. But what if your VPN is down, and you accidentally begin a download? You willing to get a $100,000 fine for that?
Just use a damn seedbox.
Just wanted to point out that if your client is configured properly it won't have any connections while the VPN is down.
Question out of curiosity, do you then keep stuff on the seedbox only or do you download to your local hard drive in your country? Because that download would still be illegal or wouldn't it? Just if we are talking about legality of things, everything else set aside.
Downloading copyrighted material isnt a crime; redistribuiting it is. (Seeding, in the case of torrents)
But then leeching via torrents is also legal. So one could just be an asshole for legality's sake.
Simple: https://fmhy.pages.dev/videopiracyguide#streaming-sites
More complex: Mullvad VPN, QBitTorrent, 1337x.to
AND use at least an adblocker, and even more important, something like noscript where you can see what the website is trying to load onto you. Ublock origin lets through an ungodly amount of crap on those streaming sites.
If you're using windows, make sure you set it to show file extensions. Watch out for files with a double extension such as "mkv.exe". That's guaranteed to be malware. Don't open any link, bat or com files either.
Nice try, cop.
VPN (always) and QBittorent. After starting your VPN, go into the Preferences > advanced settings> Optional IP to bind to > pull down the menu and find your current VPN's IP address and select it. Protected, even if your VPN goes down. You can add torrent search engines to QBittorent under the Search feature.
ipleak.net to confirm your VPN is not leaking your IP too. Add the magnet/torrent link option and keep that page open. Your client will connect and will show what ip address is being exposed to peers.
Also a good page to test your VPN in general.
I do similar except I limit qBittorrent to only use the vpn interface so has a built-in kill switch
Start by checking the Megathread and other resources in the sidebar.
These resources are really all you need, but they're all individually quite focused so for a new person it can be hard to see the forest.
An overview:
For movies, streaming sites are fine.
To start torrenting safely:
- get a paid vpn (i use mullvad)
- download qbittorrent or the like
- find a public tracker from the megathead, general ones are easy/convenient for starting imo
- virus scan/use common sense/be careful
I thought Mullvad didn’t port forward any more so torrents didn’t work with it?
It works for me... I think it's something like it goes faster with port forwarding but to be honest I don't know the details.
I'm checking out the free version of Proton VPN now after paying for PIN for a while. Haven't used it to torrent or anything yet. Just trying to run most the time now for increased security in this new era. Are unpaid versions less secure? I'm not so much worried about the price. Just checking out something different.
As a general rule, if you're getting a service for free, you're the product.
I don't know much about the downsides of free in the context of VPNs, as I didn't really get in to the technical ins and outs. But when we're talking security and privacy I think the cost of supporting something good and sustainable is well worth it.
I've heard port forwarding is helpful for speed, and that might be a paid only thing, but to be honest I'm consistently surprised by how fast things go for me just using mullvad.
Another thing you may wish to consider: the Proton CEO has praised Trump which is a huge red flag to me in the privacy space.
load more comments
(1 replies)
At least Proton isn't a scammy company compared to most other free VPNs. And they still allow port forwarding on paid plans, so they are quite a good choice for torrenting. I think Proton and Mullvad are probably the most recommended options around here.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Use a VPN. Here's a free one: https://riseup.net/en/vpn
Go to a torrent site, such as https://1337x.to/
Search the movie you want, find a torrent that suits you.
Download and watch.
Here's a free streaming site: https://hydrahd.sh/
Personally, i would never get a free one. But mullvad have gained my trust. Especially as they have been raided, proved that what the LE wanted did not exist, and therefore by law they had to turn around and leave ^^
I'd agree, but RiseUp is one of few good things online that's free and not sucking your data off the bone. They're a group of anarchists who provide free online services (mainly email, newsletters, a vpn) for free for activists.
And the FBI has raided them once and found nothing.
load more comments
(3 replies)
get a decent VPN
What do you have in terms of hardware?
What’s your experience?
I am happy to guide you through the steps needed.
Step 1: download the free ProtonVPN app; https://protonvpn.com/download
Step 2: download the free qbittorrent app; https://www.qbittorrent.org/
Step 3: download vlc media player; https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Step 4: install and connect ProtonVPN to a free server.
Step 5: Pick a public torrent website from the wiki and look for a movie you want to watch.
Step 6: copy the magnet link the website lists and add it to bittorrent. Wait for it to connect and download.
Step 7: enable showing extensions if you use windows; https://www.howtogeek.com/205086/beginner-how-to-make-windows-show-file-extensions/
Step 8: make sure that all your downloaded files only ever play in vlc, and that they arent .exe files.
Step 9: leave qbittorrent running (and seeding!) On your computer after your movies are downloaded.
Proton VPN doesn’t allow P2P file downloading (torrents) on its free version.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I would recommend Mullvad over Proton. Proton's CEO is problematic and a bit of a wild card. They also have proven that they care more about money than privacy. They want to be a Google ecosystem and constantly push more product on you. Someone else mentioned this and it's a good thing to live by: if a company's service is free, you are the product. When it comes to being an application that has full control and insight into your network traffic, no thanks.
Mullvad is disgustingly cheap, costing only $5/month. I've been using Mullvad for 15 years now, and it's always been $5/month. You get DAITA plus a whole host of other necessary sailing accoutrements. They have one of the best track records in terms of not shoving marketing bullshit down your throat and being true to what their website and documentation says. The only limitation in terms of network usage is that you can only have 5 devices tied to a single account. It's mega easy to remove a device to free up a slot, though.
Proton’s CEO is problematic and a bit of a wild card.
Could you say a bit more about this? I'm a Proton user, and this is the first I've heard of this.
EDIT: Oh my goodness. https://archive.ph/LlbSj He might as well have given Trump a BJ.
MORE: https://archive.ph/quYyb
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/
Yup, looks like you beat me to it. As you can see, problematic.
Besides, their entire ecosystem at Proton is proprietary and closed-off, just like Google and everybody else that wants to harvest your life. That should be red flag number one, besides the CEO bits.
For newbies qbitrorrent's search is more than adequate enough to replace steps 5-7. But this is a great guide!
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›