Did you torrent anything online? Why not, if you are getting everything for free? Do you think torrenting is illegal and afraid? No, Torrenting is completely legal. Shocked, right? You heard it right, In today’s guide, you will know how to torrent legally and get everything you want for free. Let’s get started…
Torrenting has been one of the best & reliable file-sharing processes. Torrenting sites are blocked in many regions. While someone torrents everything without hesitation and some still feel it’s illegal to download from torrent sites.
One day my friend Alex, who recently found torrenting allows us to download everything for free. He got curious and asked me, “Is Torrenting illegal in the USA?“. I tell him it’s better to know, In which countries torrenting is legal. Here’s I am gonna share the same with you, what I explained to him.
⏳ Short in time? Here is a quick guide for you:
- Understand torrenting laws: It’s illegal in many regions except for Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Mexico.
- Get a VPN: Use NordVPN to get IP addresses from torrent-friendly regions.
- Enjoy safe and legal torrenting from anywhere in the world.
- Torrent worry-free with NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee
⚠️Disclaimer: This guide is just for educational purposes only. Neither I nor VPNHelpers support any kind of downloading copyrighted content.
What is Torrenting?
Are you new to torrenting? If not you can skip this section. In layman’s view, torrenting is the process of file sharing (downloading or uploading) through the BitTorrent network. Users like you are called “Peers” across the network and share files, rather than downloading everything from the central server.
Torrenting gained mass popularity in 1999, as file sharing 🔥boosted download speeds reducing the load on the server and with emerging torrent sites for everything. Also, one will get everything for free in torrenting.
Torrenting became a new tradition to safely share pirated content, later everyone coined Torrenting as illegal as it hosts pirated content on the web. But torrenting has several uses if you use it appropriately, more than 29 million users torrent every day for the files they need.
So, Is Torrenting legal or illegal? I know this question is running through your mind. To find the answer to your question, stick with me till the discussion ends
Why do People say Torrenting is illegal?
Torrenting uses BitTorrent file transfer protocol, but some people either accidentally or intentionally download copyright material on torrent sites, considered illegal.
Though if you are 🤷♂️not aware that you downloaded copyright content, it might be late 😢!! You need to face the law, if either your ISP or Government knows that you are torrenting.
“Torrent Sites Contains Copyright Content, which is why people treat it as illegal”
Your ISP will always monitor your online activities, Have you ever experienced slow internet speeds? i.e your ISP is throttling your bandwidth knowing that you are torrenting. And they can complain that you are downloading copyrighted content to authorities, and you’ll end up with some punishment.
But using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) keeps your online activities private i.e no one (ISP or Government) will know what you are doing online. So, you will be completely anonymous to peacefully torrent.
Countries Where Torrenting is Legal
Drum roll🥁, the good news is torrenting is legal in many countries. But coming to illegal or private content you need to be careful while torrenting and take some safety measures. I have curated everything here for your reference.
The Term “Piracy” came from the 18th century, whenever someone broke copyright laws. As piracy is used often and very closely related to Torrenting due to the usage of torrenting to download such content.
Everyone will look after financial gain when they want to do piracy. But in Torrenting (Peer to Peer) Sharing there is no profit. No one will get any benefit out of sharing. Though it’s non-profitable for the uploader, the content owner suffers. This is why governments block torrent sites in many regions.
Here are the countries where torrenting is treated as legal (* But downloading pirated content is not).
1. SPAIN
Spain is considered one of the safest countries for torrenting. They acknowledge that torrenting doesn’t make money by sharing files with other persons. So this is entirely legal. But again there are some controversies that, this means everything others created will be available for free to everyone on the internet.
If by any chance you are traveling to Spain you can download anything via torrents without any fear of breaking their law rules.
2. NETHERLANDS
The torrenting approach is entirely different in this country. Where you can download works of art, but if you try to download anything other than this using torrents then you will be punished.
One more curious point about this country is that you are not allowed to upload anything legally. But the Dutch people can download torrent files from other countries obeying these laws.
3. MEXICO
This is a special country we need to talk about, where you can download anything through torrenting. No one cares there, so you are completely a free bird. Some research studies show that majority of the people will download music daily.
But again this looks like a pitfall trap if you are free to download everything and no one cares. Even I couldn’t find any case where people were being punished for torrenting.
4. SWITZERLAND
Switzerland is the safest place for torrenting. This country has several privacy laws in favor of people. Switzerland made torrenting available and it is not legal there for third-party members to spy on a person.
This means, that as long as you are not intended to sell others’ work on the internet, you are allowed to download everything you need.
Here I categorized every torrent site based on the content they offer. You can have a quick look at which one to use.
| Movies | Games | Anime | eBooks | Sports | Best |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Best Movies Torrent Sites | Best Games Torrent Sites | Best Anime Torrent Sites | Best eBooks Torrent Sites | Best Sports Torrent Sites | 21 Best Torrent Sites |
If you don’t like using specific torrent sites and want something to search everything like how you do on Google. Check out the Top Best Torrent Search Engines for everything.
Countries Where Torrenting is illegal
So, far you have seen the countries where torrenting is legal. Now let’s move our discussion to the places where it is treated as illegal.
Torrenting is a Punishable Offense
- Germany
- Japan
- France
- Finland
- UAE
Torrenting is Blocked
- Portugal
- Italy
- Malaysia
- China
- USA
- Australia
- Russia
- South Africa
- Latvia
Countries Where Torrenting is Checked
- Canada
- Israel
- Romania
- Greece
- India
- Uruguay
- Czech Republic
- Slovenia
- Columbia
- Brazil
- Philippines
- Argentina
- Iran
- Egypt
- Denmark
- Singapore
Steps to Torrent Legally From Anywhere-2022
It is a very simple procedure to access these torrent sites legally. You will need a VPN to help to access this site. A VPN will mask your IP Address with the server IP, which makes it impossible to track your activity for other users or ISP.
- Get a good VPN (I recommend using NordVPN which has a built-in kill Switch + Auto connect feature).
- Now click on ⚙option available.
- Now You can find Kill Switch settings in the general section.
- Ensure its toggle is “on” to enjoy the Kill Switch feature on your device.
- Connect to servers where torrenting is legal, and where this site is not restricted.
- Now you are ready to torrent on any website, once your connection is established.
- Here we will use uTorrent as Torrent Client and guide you on how to install that and use that for downloading files. Go to the uTorrent Official Website and click on the Download uTorrent Web.
- After clicking download, If you are to choose any plan then choose else go for the free version and click on Keep if your system detects it as a Harmful file.
- Install the file after downloading then run the file. You are now ready to download the torrent files.
- Visit Any Torrent site listed above or your favorite one like The Pirates Bay. Search any software you want. Click on the magnet link.
- A prompt will appear, tap on open the uTorrent app to start downloading the file.
- Your download will begin and have 🥳safe torrenting.
Best Working VPNs For Torrenting
NordVPN: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Dedicated Torrent Servers
🔥Pricing
- 5407 servers in 60 Countries
- Unblocks International services Netflix, Hulu, Prime, HBO, iPlayer, Disney+, and Amazon Prime.
- Double VPN feature, Kill Switch, Split Tunneling, Tor, and additional features
- Unlimited Streaming in Ultra HD quality without data caps
- Unlimited P2P/Torrenting anonymously with dedicated P2P servers
- CyberSec to avoid malware and block ads
- Reliable kill switch with a strict No-logs policy
- 6 Simultaneous device connections
- 24/7 Live Chat customer support
- 30 Days full refund policy
Overview
NordVPN is another 🥇top VPN to consider for torrenting that comes with a gigantic network of 5400+ servers across the world. Its custom-developed NordLynx protocol ensures that your speed is sky 🚀rocketing no matter which server you connect to without comprising your privacy.
NordVPN uses military-grade AES-256-bit encryption with perfect forward secrecy leaving no trace behind and completely free from all kinds of leaks (Tested). Follows No-log policy and runs every server on RAM (Volatile), they are frequently audited by third-party companies like PwC.
NordVPN has dedicated servers for torrenting with some handy options to find the fastest server. VPN speeds are impressive to download torrents quickly, have a look at the speeds once.
Also, there is a convenient “Quick Connect” feature that connects you to the fastest server available nearby. NordVPN comes with an intuitive & user-friendly interface with similar features on every platform.
NordVPN protects your DDoS attacks and there is a built-in ads & malware blocker that protects you from unwanted viruses and inappropriate ads. This VPN is compatible with all platforms including Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS so you will get complete support.
Also, there offer 30 days of the money-back guarantee program (worth trying the VPN without any risk) and if you don’t like the service you can claim your refund within 2-5 days.
Pro’s
- Dedicated Servers for Torrenting
- Low Latency & Premium Speeds (NordLynx)
- AES 256-bit encryption with No-Log Policy
- Built-in Ad & Malware blocker + Kill Switch
- DDoS & DoS attack protection
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- SmartPlay Unblocks Any Streaming Service
- Quick & Responsive Live Chat Support
Con’s
- Speeds are poor on distant servers
ExpressVPN:⭐⭐⭐⭐✨ Torrenting VPN
🔥Pricing
- 3000+ Servers in 160+ locations (94 countries)
- Unblock Amazon Prime, Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and more
- Unbeatable Security Encryption with OpenVPN (TCP/UDP), L2TP, IPSec, IKEv2
- Full Torrenting Support (Dedicated P2P Servers) with split tunneling.
- Compatible with Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, Consoles, routers, etc.
- 5 Simultaneous device connections
- Zero Log Policy with a robust automatic kill switch
- 24/7 Live Customer Support
- 30 Days full refund policy
Overview
ExpressVPN is a perfect VPN for torrenting that has⚡blazing fast speeds and a tock solid Server Network built up of 3000+ servers across the world in 94 countries. This ensures that you can unblock every torrent site across the world by connecting to different servers with a simple tap.
This VPN is from the British Virgin Islands, 💪 is completely privacy-friendly, and strictly follows a no-log policy running entirely its servers network on Diskless RAM Servers. ExpressVPN maintains city-level servers (to reduce server load), and you can enjoy full speeds even during peak hours as well. To test this out, we have connected to the US server and tested out speeds before opening Free Fire. The speeds are really surprising though, but the speed is slightly high.
ExpressVPN Lightway is the best VPN protocol for downloading torrents and for a better experience change to UDP transmission. Also, it supports OpenVPN, Ikev2, and L2Tp-IPSec. And uses AES-256-bit encryption for complete privacy & anonymity. Furthermore protected from all kinds of DNS, IP, and WebRTC leaks.
With its obfuscated servers you can download Free Fire from any region and even access sensitive content or website over the internet in a secure way. ExpressVPN comes with a friendly interface and is compatible with almost all the device platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS.
Also, it can consistently unblock streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Disney+ along with other services like BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, etc (36+ streaming services). No matter where you are in the world, you won’t miss a single show & the speeds are very fluid to stream everything in Ultra HD, here check for yourself.
They offer 24/7 live chat support if you run into any issues and there are 30-day money-back guarantee program (risk-free) to try this VPN for free. If you want then there is a hidden page for low-price subscriptions.
Pro’s
- Premium Speeds with consistent connection
- Compatible with Torrent clients
- Torrenting Support on every server
- Privacy Friendly VPN with zero log policy
- Unblocks any streaming service & website
- Top-Class Customer Support
Con’s
- Maximum 5 device connections
FAQs Related to Torrenting
Can I Torrent Without a VPN?
No, it’s unsafe to torrent directly without a VPN as the torrent sites will know your IP Address. Also, your ISP will keep track of your every online activity. Revealing your IP Address opens doors for hackers i.e your device can be breached or attacked. So, it’s always better to use a VPN while torrenting.
Is it legal to download torrents?
Torrenting is a sharing procedure that is entirely legal in most countries. And it’s completely legal to download torrents in those countries except if you are not involved in downloading pirated or copyrighted content. There are chances that you might accidentally download some pirated content, don’t let anyone know what you do online. So, we recommend using a VPN always.
How does your ISP track your Torrenting Activities?
They can identify the type of file that you are downloading and the port you are connected to. They can monitor the bandwidth usage since torrents will use high bandwidth so that they will know that you are torrenting. But if you connect to VPN it will end your ISP tracking.
Can I use Tor Browser for Torrenting?
Tor browser might keep you anonymous but it is not designed to handle P2P file sharing. The Tor Project creator asks the public to avoid using BitTorrent with Tor. They mention that they cannot handle huge traffic and isn’t safe. So it is not good to use.
Can I use a free VPN for Torrenting?
No!, we don’t recommend using a free VPN as they don’t have servers in many regions (where torrenting is legal). Also, they limit your bandwidth and collect your data then sell it to third parties to generate revenue.
Will Torrenting get you arrested?
You will not go to court by downloading torrents often. But if you are caught torrenting illegally then your ISP can take action against you. But less severe measures like sending out warning letters might slow down your internet connection usually.
🙌Wrap Up!
I hope you got your answers, torrenting is legal in some countries. Users who live outside those countries can connect to a VPN and legally torrent as shown above.
Torrent safely with a VPN (use NordVPN), leaving no trace of your torrenting activity. NordVPN has ⚡premium VPN speeds and offers unlimited bandwidth to download torrents quickly. Also, the VPN is privacy friendly & keeps you protected with AES-256-bit encryption.
Using VPN will get your internet speeds back by ending ISP throttling. Also, the VPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee program i.e you can get a refund if you are not satisfied with the service.
🎯Tip: Torrent only from a trusted source to avoid the risk of viruses or breaches.
