I've been wanting to get into torrenting for a while, particularly contributing to private trackers related to music (and to a lesser extent retro games, though I don't have much original stuff to put there as it's harder to find rare games than rare music). FMHY recommends RiseUp if I must get a free VPN while I'm working on my financial situation, though I'm not sure whether it's been tested in court. What are my options, if any?

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[–] Harkronis@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 2 days ago

VPNs are dirt cheap. How can you say you can't afford one? What is your budget, $0.50?

[–] sureshot@discuss.online 1 points 2 days ago

what is your budget? you say you can't afford a vpn, most vpns are roughly 71 yuan or 10 USD per month, with the option to buy at a large discount if purchased for the full year. tell your budget in your local currency... 10 dollars per month isn't very expensive, but these subscriptions do add up.

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Tribler or i2p.

Edit: there are also non-bittorrent p2p networks out there like Retroshare, but I haven't used them, so don't know how useful they are.

[–] ScratchySoft@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What are the adoption rates of those compared to a standard private tracker?

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Dunno, I haven't used private trackers in 10 years. You can add any magnet link to Tribler and it will go through exit nodes to hide your IP, kind of like Tor does for browsing clearnet. I haven't used i2p in a while either; back then, I used the Postman tracker, and don't know if that's still what most people do or not. I personally just use a paid VPN, because there really isn't a good way to set Tribbler up with an *arr stack.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 5 points 6 days ago

I would prioritize a VPN ahead of an ISP. Free Open/Public APs are not uncommon in my area.

[–] MBech@feddit.dk 3 points 5 days ago

It's really that important in the USA? Asking from Europe, where Ivve never even heard of anyone getting fined.

[–] Rabbit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Mullvad is €5 a month for total of €60 for a year.

Save up then torrent. If you live in the US you risk way more in fines than what €60 for a year of VPN would cost.

[–] brainwashed@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago

You basically have 5 (?) devices there. Share the cost with 4 friends and it's 1 Euro a month.

[–] horse@feddit.org 3 points 6 days ago

If you can share the cost of a VPN with one or more other people (most allow multiple devices to connect at the same time), it'll be much cheaper. Or if you can't afford that either, try to find someone who will let you use theirs for free. Maybe you can even find someone who isn't tech savvy who will pay you a few bucks a month to cover the VPN in exchange for you downloading Linux ISOs for them.

[–] palarith@aussie.zone 4 points 6 days ago

Its being a while for me but windscribe and seedr had totally usable free tiers

[–] spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago

You can afford AirVPN 💜

[–] theangriestbird@beehaw.org 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Doesn't Proton have a free VPN tier? I think it doesn't support port forwarding so your connections would be limited, but that might still work?

Otherwise, check the megathread and go with direct downloads. Those happen over https so completely encrypted.

[–] ScratchySoft@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What music DDL sites let you contribute FLACs?

[–] theangriestbird@beehaw.org 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Hmm I'm not sure about contributing. You've presented yourself as someone too broke to afford a VPN so I didn't think you were buying CDs and ripping flacs. Sorry if I misunderstood your goals. I was more focused on the goal of obtaining files.

Edit: ps, not sure if you saw yet, but I pm'd you about another possible solution.

[–] ScratchySoft@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 days ago

I do sometimes buy CDs, though many of my CDs are from before my financial situation was quite as bad as it is now. They're all from thrift stores though, so none of them are more than $1.99.

[–] lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Use torrent over I2P. Qbittorrent can do it.

[–] cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 days ago

Find a friend in a less shit place you can proxy through.

[–] sefra1@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don't usually recommend this, but since you are in a situation where you really can't afford a VPN or a seedbox and live in a country where torrenting is prosecuted then I think that grants a free pass to abuse the tor network a bit and torrent over tor.

There are some guides online on now to route the traffic, note that it's very easy to leak traffic if you don't know what you're doing. Look for a good guide . I'm guessing the safest way to do it is by using Whonix.

If going that route avoid downloading big torrents if you can find smaller ones or try to search for direct downloads first.

And also, I don't usually say this, but, avoid seeding. Yes leeching is bad, but saturating tor is probably worse I think.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 2 points 5 days ago

Torrenting on TOR is actively discouraged for a reason. It will also be slow and exit nodes are probably in many blacklists, so you won't get good seeds.

If you want to torrent over a shadownet, use I2P. It allows torrenting (the Java I2P client even includes torrent software). It also has its own internal trackers. And due to the way it works, you can tunnel traffic for others without risk of getting flagged for something illegal or other people's torrents (which happens with many other TOR alternatives that allow torrenting).

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 1 points 6 days ago

Honest question, why would you need a VPN if you want to download from private trackers?

Usually, copyright owners target people on public trackers and on the DHT. Not a problem if you only get into private trackers.

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