Most commercially available torrent clients come with intrusive ads and tracking. These mainstream freeware can threaten your privacy as their creators let you use the app for free in exchange for your data.
To solve this issue, today’s article explores the five best community-driven free torrent clients, which you can use with proxies for security and privacy.
Torrenting: Legal or Illegal?
Contrary to popular belief, sending files over the BitTorrent protocol is not illegal. If you download a copyright-free file from the internet, it is totally legal. It doesn’t matter if you use a torrent or a web browser. On the other hand, if you interact with copyrighted material, it is considered illegal.
Nowadays, though, torrenting gets associated with piracy, even if you download only copyleft or public domain content. As a result, it is wise to use torrents legally yet anonymously using a proxy so that no one can track your original IP address and monitor your data packets.
Top 5 Torrent Clients That Don’t Track You
Ad-supported torrent clients are privacy nightmares. So, choose one of the finest free and open-source software (FOSS) alternatives listed below.
Transmission
Transmission is a reliable open-source torrent client that delivers a minimalist user experience. Although its design is simple, the app is rugged and supports encryption, a distributed hash table (DHT), peer exchange, magnet links, µTP, UPnP, and NAT-PMP port forwarding, among many other features. The app is easy to learn, while the advanced features such as watch directories, tracker editing, etc., will become familiar with use.
qBittorrent
qBittorrent is one of the most popular FOSS alternatives to µTorrent. This torrent client is a feature-rich application that works on Windows, Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD. With the QT toolkit and libtorrent-rasterbar library at its base, qBittorrent provides a sleek user interface with top-notch performance. This software supports magnet links, DHT, peer exchange protocol (PEX), UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding, and local peer discovery (LSD). What is more, qBittorrent doesn’t have any ads or tracking. Moreover, it comes with a bandwidth scheduler and torrent creation tool.
Deluge
Deluge is one of the most trusted torrent clients that doesn’t bundle pop-up ads, flash ads, and twitter tracking. This app can operate both as a standalone desktop application and a client-server. The Deluge daemon in Thinclient mode handles all BitTorrent activities where it can connect to remote interfaces from any platform. Besides the polished look, Deluge provides comprehensive support for most common BitTorrent protocols like DHT, PEX, UPnP, proxies, etc.
BiglyBT
One of the most advanced torrenting software on the market is BiglyBT which doesn’t bombard the users with ads. BiglyBT is a feature-rich open-source BitTorrent client that comes with an Android app, meaning you can use it on a smartphone. For anonymous downloading, BiglyBT supports I2P (by employing I2P DHT). UPnP media server and DLNA supports let users browse content effortlessly with their devices.
WebTorrent
WebTorrent is a unique client that supports streaming torrents via its desktop or web clients. It supports streaming videos, music, and audiobooks from free platforms like Internet Archive, Creative Commons, and Librivox. The non-commercial desktop client of WebTorrent is exceptionally fast, ad-free, and supports DLNA, Chromecast, and AirPlay to stream videos. The web client is based on Node.js and comes with a refined look combined with support for WebRTC, DHT, and PEX.
Why You Should Use a Proxy for Torrenting Anonymously
Encrypted proxies are great for protecting any digital communication over the internet. This section discusses their importance in torrenting.
Obscurity
Since torrenting depends on a P2P connection, users must share their IP addresses. Providing an original IP address can make one an easy target of malicious hackers and trolls. With a good proxy provider, users can sustain their online anonymity. Proxies offer alternative IP addresses that can mask users’ original IPs and hide them from other peers within the network.
Access to Geo-Blocked Content
ISP and government regulations can block some content from a different country of origin. Therefore, a proxy from a reputed provider can help you unlock those torrent sites and legally obtain a myriad of content without worrying about geo-blocking. Visit https://bestproxyfinder.com/ to discover the best proxy providers.
Download Without Fear
Torrents are great for distributing large files over the internet without putting too much strain on computer resources. They conserve bandwidth and offer high-quality multi-media streaming. Although their association with copyright violation is well-known, torrenting is actually legal. Using a proxy with an open-source client that doesn’t track you can open the world of knowledge and entertainment that you can consume anonymously and safely.