Is ProtonVPN Good for Torrenting? (Test Results & Guide)

If you’re looking for a reliable VPN for torrenting, ProtonVPN must have come up. But how good is it really, and how did it fare compared to other VPNs?

First of all, ProtonVPN does incredibly well at keeping your info private, which is good for torrenting. Being based in Switzerland, good privacy laws protect the VPN, and they keep very little of your information. They also have solid encryption for keeping your data safe.

Is ProtonVPN Good for Torrenting? 

Using torrent-specific servers on ProtonVPN, you will be able to download your torrents at top speed every time while also keeping your IP safe. It is an effective way to torrent as safely as possible with just a few clicks. 

There are a lot of helpful features for ProtonVPN torrenting, but there are also some downsides. Let’s explore the pros and cons together and decide if this VPN would work for you. 

Pros

  • Great Privacy Features 
  • Hundreds of P2P Servers 
  • Powerful Encryption 
  • No Log Data 
  • Always-On 
  • Kill Switch 

Cons 

  • Tiered Plans Can Limit Your P2P Server Selection 
  • Fewer Locations for P2P Servers 
  • Free Plan Doesn’t Allow Torrenting 
  • Doesn’t Offer SOCKS5 Compatibility

If the top feature you need from a VPN is privacy and safety, ProtonVPN is a great option. For your torrenting, if speed is the top concern for you, then there are other VPN choices out there that can give you faster downloads. 

Best VPN Overall
Best VPN Features

If you have more questions about ProtonVPN and how well it does as a VPN, we have a full review of the service for all activities. 

Is ProtonVPN fast? (Test Results)

Without VPN (Dublin):

no vpn dublin speed

US East Coast Server:

protonvpn us east coast server speed

Dutch Server:

protonvpn dutch server speed

Japanese Server:

protonvpn japanese server speed

Due to the high-security encryptions, speed is critical to keep your VPN experience positive. ProtonVPN speeds guarantee a minimum of one Gbps connection for every server. Some of the most in-demand servers get up to ten Gbps.

The company uses multiple servers in many of the most popular locations. It allows you plenty of options to find high-speed connections.  

These large bandwidths allow you to use the best encryptions and have high-speed internet. It helps ensure that you can do everything you want online while keeping your privacy.

What Makes ProtonVPN Good for Torrenting?  

  1. P2P Filesharing Support
  2. Privacy-Centric
  3. Encryption Levels
  4. Kill Switch Feature

There are many things that you need to make a VPN suitable for torrenting. You want to make sure the VPN service supports torrenting. You also have to ensure that your online activities remain private and safe. 

You need to keep your info away from ISPs, and fellow torrent users. Without a helpful VPN, anyone else torrenting the same file can get ahold of your IP address and other info. 

Depending on the location of your VPN, there can be issues with privacy and data protection. Third parties can compel VPN providers to give up any information in some places. Location, privacy laws, and limited data collection can help avoid this problem.

Here are some of the features you should look for in a VPN for torrenting. Let’s examine if ProtonVPN torrent helps users in each one of these categories. By looking at what it offers, you can determine if it is the right torrent VPN for you. 

READ ALSO: Why Aren’t VPNs Illegal? (A Full Answer)

1. P2P Support

protonvpn p2p servers
ProtonVPN is very P2P-friendly

Some VPNs don’t support P2P or torrenting. Most free VPNs don’t allow you to torrent. The free version of ProtonVPN doesn’t let anyone use peer sharing services. Even with the paid versions of the VPN, you only gain P2P and torrenting on specific servers that ProtonVPN provides. 

ProtonVPN offers you access to over 1,500 servers in over 60 countries. You don’t get P2P servers in all of those locations. The company has 200+ ProtonVPN P2P servers. You can pick from 12 different countries for these servers, including Canada, The UK, The US, and Hong Kong. 

When you use these servers, you gain access to protocols and settings that allow you to download torrents at high speeds while still keeping your data private and secure. It helps make sure you have an excellent torrenting experience. 

2. Privacy

Staying private when you are torrenting is a vital feature. It is the main benefit when using a VPN, but it is crucial with torrenting. You have to protect your privacy from anyone else downloading the same files as you. 

There are two ways to prevent this problem. The less info your VPN provider keeps about you means less info to give up. The laws of the VPN company’s country are also important. Better privacy laws will help keep you safer.

ProtonVPN is based in Switzerland with some of the strongest privacy laws in the world. They are not required to give your information to any third party. To help prove their privacy, they participated in a full independent audit. 

They have a strict no-logs policy and keep very little information about the user. You can share even less info with them by paying with Bitcoin. It helps ensure that your info stays private. 

3. Encryption

Encryption works by ensuring that all data leaving and coming to your computer is unreadable if someone does happen to intercept it. ProtonVPN uses military-level encryptions to scramble communications and decodes them when they are received. 

If someone does collect any information, they will not be able to decipher it, so they have a useless packet of data. The VPN uses a new encryption key every time you log into ProtonVPN. Even if someone can beat the encryption over time, it won’t work on any new data you use. 

ProtonVPN has one more level of encryption because they protect their physical hard drives by encryption. Even if people attack the VPN servers directly, they will have a hard time using any info they may get. 

READ NEXT: The 3 Ways How VPNs Help With Streaming (A Quick Guide)

4. Kill Switch

protonvpn kill switch
ProtonVPN is known for its security features

Having a kill switch is essential for using torrents. You want to ensure that your information stays safe even if you walk away from your computer while leeching or seeding a file. If your VPN goes down and you don’t have a kill switch, your data is available for the world to see. 

The kill switch turns off your internet connection if you lose your VPN. That means if your VPN goes down, your data drops offline before you give any of it out unprotected. This feature makes torrenting much safer and more private. 

If you lose connection and the kill switch kicks in, you can manually override it. If you want to continue to use the internet unprotected, you have the option to continue your online activities. The key is that you will know for sure whether your VPN is on or off. 

You can decide what you do online after that. If you want to stop your torrenting client, you can quickly turn it off before you turn your internet connection back on. You are entirely in control of your data this way. 

Kill switch pairs well with the always-on feature for ProtonVPN. If you lose connection, always-on tries to reconnect so that you are not left unprotected. This combination can help you get back on the VPN and back online, even when you’re not by your computer. 

What Makes ProtonVPN Bad for Torrenting?

Some people like using a SOCKS5 proxy to download torrents. These proxies aren’t as secure as a full VPN, but they offer much faster download speeds which are attractive for torrent downloaders. Some VPNs offer the ability to use a SOCKS5 proxy when you want speed.

With a SOCKS5 proxy, you can change your location information. It works well with specific apps and offers address protection for the user. There is no encryption on these proxies, so your data isn’t safe if a third party catches it. 

Unfortunately, ProtonVPN doesn’t have SOCKS5 Compatibility. Proxies aren’t as secure, so they are not a feature that ProtonVPN offers users. The lack of proxies makes ProtonVPN a little less useful to torrent users. 

How to use ProtonVPN for Torrenting?

Using ProtonVPN torrenting is very easy and requires a few easy steps. You can start torrenting on any device within minutes.

  1. You have to be on one of the paid plans for ProtonVPN. The free plan doesn’t support any torrenting. You can pick from the Basic, Plus, or Visionary plan. You have to sign up for the service. If you already use ProtonMail, you can link the two accounts. 
  2. To pay for your ProtonVPN account, you can use PayPal, Bitcoin credit, or debit card. Bitcoin can help you remain even more private when making your account. 
  3. Once you have an account, you need to download the app. ProtonVPN has apps for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS. Install the app, log into your account and turn on the VPN. 
  4. Find a server that allows you to torrent. You can pick from one of ProtonVPN’s 200+ P2P servers in 12 different countries. You can easily find these servers on the list by looking for a double arrow icon. Click connect to use the server of your choice. 
  5. Once the VPN is on, you want to make sure you activate your kill switch and always-on feature for your app. You can turn both on by going into your settings and starting them. 

Android doesn’t have a kill switch, but you can use always-on to help make sure that you stay on your VPN and reconnect quickly if you ever become disconnected. For iOS, always-on is permanently active; you don’t have to set it. 

Usually, once you set everything up correctly, the app will save the settings, and you won’t have to do it again. However, if you are unsure, check the first few times you use the service to know all your settings are correct before you start torrenting. 

You can test your VPN for leak protection now that it is on. Sometimes leaks can cause you problems and give away private information. There are a lot of free Torrent IP checker tools that make sure your data is hidden. 

Once you are happy with your settings and privacy, you can turn on your torrenting client. Any torrenting client works fine with ProtonVPN. uTorrent, Vuze, BitTorrent, Deluge, and qBittorrent all work fine. 

There isn’t ProtonVPN BitTorrent or ProtonVPN uTorrent. The app for your operating system is all you need to gain protection and privacy. Once you pick your client, Find the file you want to share and start torrenting.

RELATED: ProtonVPN Review – High-speed Swiss VPN

Can You Use ProtonVPN’s Free Plan for Torrenting?

The free ProtonVPN doesn’t use ads, which is a useful feature. Money earned from premium customers funds the free option. You don’t have to worry about ProtonVPN taking your info and selling it to ad companies so they can target you.

Although your information is protected, you can’t use many extra features that the premium plans grant.

It will also only work on one device, and it is limited to servers in three ProtonVPN free countries. These countries are the US, Netherlands, and Japan. You get unlimited data on the free plan, which is very helpful, but they throttle the top speeds available. 

The speed throttling makes it almost impossible to stream on the free plan. Even if you try to watch media, many streaming companies have blocked the free servers. If you want a VPN for streaming, the free plan will not work for you.

There is also no P2P sharing on the free servers. This restriction makes the free option unusable for torrenting and other file-sharing activities.  

Pricing 

ProtonVPN has four different pricing tiers. You can choose from: 

  • Free 
  • Basic 
  • Plus
  • Visionary 

There are monthly, annual, or two-year options.

There are okay savings for the annual subscription, and you can save up to 33% by getting a two-year subscription. 

The Basic plan gives you two devices, and it lets you use faster speed on the servers. P2P servers on the basic plan allow you to use torrents. 

The Plus plan allows you to use five devices on the server’s full ten Gbps of speed when available. It also has servers that do better with streaming. This option allows you to enjoy all the features ProtonVPN has to offer.

The Visionary plan gives you 10 devices at once. You also can use everything in the Plus plan and the Visionary ProtonMail account. ProtonMail gives you a ton of extra features on their secure email plans. It is an excellent option and offers significant savings if you need both the VPN and the email.

Alternative Torrenting VPNs

If ProtonVPN doesn’t seem like the best torrenting solution for you, there are many other VPN options out there. You can find a VPN provider that gives you faster download speeds. Some give you different options that offer you a slightly different torrenting experience. 

Here are some of the more unique options that provide you with special tools for torrenting to help you with your sharing goals.  

NordVPN

nordvpn

NordVPN offers users a lot of torrenting options. The amount of P2P servers is nearly the same, with NordVPN providing over 1,300 dedicated servers for torrenting. These are available in 45 different countries, which gives you a wider choice of options. 

You can’t argue with NordVPN’s speed, either. You get some of the fastest download speeds available for torrenting, which can be very useful. 

Privacy and security features are still outstanding on NordVPN, so you don’t lose protection by choosing this option. It is a full-featured VPN that can also help you torrent. 

It isn’t a cheap option, but it offers you many features for that price.    

Surfshark

surfshark

Surfshark is often the fastest option for torrenting, and all of their 3,200 servers in 65 countries allow you to use P2P. The selection will enable you to find the files you want and the speeds to download more easily. 

Surfshark offers good security, decent encryption, and sound privacy protection. It may not be as secure as ProtonVPN, but they are still trustworthy and safe. Users can access torrents without giving up their information. 

On top of increased availability, Surfshark is an inexpensive VPN. So even though you do drop speeds slightly, you are still getting a pretty good service for a low price. 

PrivateVPN

privatevpn

PrivateVPN is a smaller VPN option. It gives you a better connection to the company, but you also get fewer options for servers. All the company’s servers allow you to use P2P. That gives you a link to P2P in 60 countries. 

Users gain access to SOCKS5 and HTTP Proxy to get some privacy help while keeping their regular internet speeds. This option gives you more ability to use different apps and devices to download your torrents. 

PrivateVPN is one of the less expensive options, but you don’t gain as many features as ProtonVPN. It is also a slower option which can make torrenting a little less fun, especially if you download all the time. 

Summary

Out of all the VPN options out there, is ProtonVPN a good choice for your privacy, security, streaming, and torrenting?

In our expert opinion, as someone who tested hundreds of VPNs, ProtonVPN is certainly in the top 5, if not the top 3. It offers a plan for everyone, and even its free plan is the best on the market, by far – although not suitable for torrenting.

If you’re willing to upgrade, you’ll get a top-notch VPN that’s based in Switzerland that offers high speeds that will be more than good enough for torrenting. 

Best VPN Overall
Best VPN Features
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