Torrent Safely by using a SOCKS5 Proxy:
Using P2P networks and torrenting clients is a practical way to share content online. However, they come with risks, even if you’re using torrents for perfectly legal and harmless reasons. You could be flagged for suspicious internet usage by your ISP, and you don’t know who else using the P2P network can see your real IP.
Luckily, an easy, safe, and convenient way to secure your torrenting activities is to bind your torrent client to a VPN. In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how:
Why use a SOCK5 Proxy?
By default, P2P torrenting clients, like BitTorrent, don’t hide your activity. So, anyone monitoring your internet connection, such as your ISP, will be able to see that you’re using torrents and what exactly you are downloading, uploading, or sharing.
Because torrenting is associated with digital piracy, many ISPs are against it. Some will start to throttle or block your connection to torrenting sites, regardless of whether you’re using it for legitimate reasons. Not to mention that anyone in the “torrenting swarm” will be able to see your IP.
A proxy server can help protect your privacy by changing the way this traffic looks to your ISP and hiding your IP address. SOCKS5 is simply a type of proxy server that can be used to authenticate users that want to connect to it. Many paid VPN services, for example, TorGuard or Private Internet Access, offer SOCKS5 to give users access to their proxy servers.
If you have VPN software installed, you could simply connect to your VPN every time you use a torrent client alongside your SOCKS5 – this may slow things down, but it will go a long way to protect yourself from your ISP.
Many torrent clients today allow you to configure them so that they connect to the P2P network using a proxy server provided by your VPN. This way, you only have to configure your proxy settings once in the torrent client, and it will use it every time to establish a secure and private connection to the P2P network.
There are many reasons why SOCKS5 specifically is considered the optimal protocol for torrenting:
- Full UDP support: SOCKS5 supports TCP and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) transfer protocols. This allows you to use features like DHT and UDP trackers to take full advantage of the capabilities and capacity of a P2P network.
- Faster speeds: VPN connections may have complex routing, privacy, and security protocols. While this makes typical VPN connections more secure and private, it slows them down. Full UDP support also means you can connect to more peers simultaneously.
- Improved privacy (If setup correctly): Many paid VPN and proxy services know that people who use SOCKS5 are concerned about their privacy. So, most offer non-logging SOCKS5 torrent proxy services or enforce strict no-logs policies. This means that none of your information or activity is stored on the provider’s servers, making you virtually untraceable. Remember that not all SOCKS5 providers have no-logs policies.
How to Set up uTorrent with Your SOCKS5 Proxy:
There are many torrent clients, but most work essentially the same. This guide will give you step-by-step instructions on how to bind the uTorrent client to the SOCKS5 proxy. However, these steps will be almost the same for other torrenting clients and VPNs:
- Run the uTorrent client.
- In the top, lefthand menu, click “Options” and then “Preferences:”
- In the left sidebar menu, select “Connection:”
- The “Proxy Server” area is where you’ll configure uTorrent to connect to P2P networks via your VPN. From the “Type” dropdown, select SOCKS5, and the other fields will become active:
- Next, you will need to find the address of the proxy server you would like to use. Generally, the server closest to you will offer the best performance. However, keep in mind that not all servers from all VPNs are guaranteed to support SOCKS5 or P2P torrenting. You should find a list of available servers in the VPN provider’s documentation.
- Once you have a proxy server, type it into the “Proxy field. And enter one of the available Ports in the “Port” field.
- Of course, you’ll also need to sign in. So, tick “Authentication” and provide your VPN Provider account username and password. You can also usually find these details in your VPN account.
- Check all the remaining boxes below “Proxy Server” and “Proxy Privacy”.
- Be sure to uncheck all options below “Listening Port” for privacy reasons – these features can and will leak your real IP.
- Next, click “Apply” and “OK” to save the settings. You should also restart your torrent client to ensure it uses the new proxy settings.
And, that’s it! If you followed the steps above, you have configured your uTorrent client to establish secure connections to the P2P network using a SOCKS5 proxy server from your VPN provider.
How to Test if Your Torrent is Using a Secure Connection
Before you start torrenting with your new configuration, there is an easy way to test if it’s working. Just follow the steps below:
- Go to https://ipleak.net/.
- Scroll down to “Torrent Address Connection” and click “Activate”.
- Click the “this Magnet Link” link:
- In the popup, click “Open uTorrent:”
- You should now see the uTorrent client open and that there is a new torrent that looks just like any other regular torrent.
- Go back to ipleak.net. You should now see that the information in the “Torrent Address detection” box has been updated. If it shows the exact address you used to configure your proxy server above, you know it’s working.
Conclusion
Now, you can have peace of mind when using a torrent client, knowing that no one has access to your ISP IP address and that your activity won’t be logged by prying eyes. Remember that you can follow almost the same steps for most torrent clients – VPN combinations. However, we recommend a VPN provider with a trusted, strict no-logs policy that offers SOCKS5 proxy servers.
| Provider: | Speed: | Stability | Purchase: |
|---|---|---|---|
 | 9/10 - Very Fast | 9/10 - Very Stable | Buy Now |
 | 9/10 - Very Fast | 9/10 - Very Stable | Buy Now |
 | 9/10 - Very Fast | 9/10 - Very Stable | Buy Now |
