Best VPNs for Torrenting on Mac

But it’s not all a sweet deal, though, especially since torrenting has sparked the ire of copyright owners, mostly because there is some abuse of file sharing and so they sought to regulate file sharing. The result has lead to government restrictions, which vary from country to country.

Secure torrent downloads on Mac

While very helpful in getting the latest movie, album or book (or maybe even a game), there is a weakness in the torrent system due to its setup: peers can see the IP addresses of any swarm participants. That includes yourself if you are seeding a torrent file to help the community. This means your identity is available to anyone in the network, and that could include the copyright owner who could be doing everything to stop the torrent community from sharing the material.

The best way to protect your privacy (and enable access to torrent sites in countries where the government blocks them) is by using a VPN service. Doing so will hide your real IP address behind one given to you by the VPN service provider based on the location of the secure server you choose. A VPN service acts like a tunnel, securing traffic between your computer and the VPN server, shielding your real identity (IP address) from prying eyes and encrypting any traffic between the two. Hence no one, not even your ISP, can see what you are doing online.

This way the P2P network you are connected to will see only the IP address provided by the VPN service provider, so your identity is protected. Another important aspect is that VPNs help you avoid ad tracking, since advertisers that monitor your activity and serve you ads based on location cannot correctly find your IP details. By shielding your real IP address, this matter is handily resolved and access is opened up to torrent sites, restricted platforms, and blocked content in services such as Netflix, Hulu and Spotify.

Still, there is something to keep in mind: you might notice some speed difference when using a VPN service compared to relying solely on the speeds of your ISP. The reason for this slowdown is that by using a VPN you are routing all your traffic through the VPN server. The more people using the VPN server, the more likely the speed will slow down. The speed is variable based on the distance between you and the server you’re connected to, as well as the protocol you are using.

While a slower speed might be the only trade-off of using a VPN service to protect your privacy, there are workarounds that help keep it as fast as possible. Try using all the different types of VPN protocols available to test their speeds. One thing you should keep in mind, though, is that you will be limited to a bandwidth cap, which varies by country. For a good P2P experience, your best option should be to choose a server located in a country with relaxed rules for P2P services. For example, the Netherlands, Mexico, Spain or Canada are good choices that all provide nice, average speeds.

VPN vs proxy for torrenting

Regular users of torrent sites use either VPN services or proxy servers to mask their real identity. A proxy server is a computer between your Mac and the internet, hiding your IP address so that you appear to be accessing the web from where the proxy is located instead of your true location.

While VPN works similarly to a proxy server – since you connect to a server in a location of your choice – they work slightly differently. A proxy is like a gateway to the torrent software you are using, so it will only disguise your activity through that torrent client (think uTorrent, Vuze, Deluge and so on). For example, if you set up a proxy server with your torrent client, all your traffic is routed through that proxy server and as a result the torrent swarm will see only the IP address of the selected proxy. But not all proxies encrypt your traffic, which means using them is less safe.

A VPN service, on the other hand, shields all your internet connections from the very moment you connect to your selected secure server, encrypting all the traffic between your computer and the VPN server so that not even your ISP can see it, not to mention the government or hackers looking for new targets.

When it comes to protecting your online privacy, limitations apply with proxy servers; hence, we recommend using a VPN service that encrypts all your activity. It’s also worth noting that some VPN services, such as IPVanish, also offer proxy servers.

Best torrent clients for Mac

In light of the above, you might want to ‘update’ your torrenting habits with a few tweaks, such as either using an encrypted proxy server or – our recommendation – a VPN service. We’ve picked three torrent clients for Mac that we consider to be among the best for use with a VPN connection.