Is ProtonVPN Safe for Torrenting?

ProtonVPN is a good choice for torrenting privately and safely. It offers dedicated P2P-optimized servers, has a minimal logging policy, and comes with a collection of impressive security features.

Other VPNs are faster and has larger server network size, but ProtonVPN will definitely keep you safe when torrenting.

Here are the features that make ProtonVPN a good choice for P2P file-sharing:

Support for P2P traffic

ProtonVPN supports torrenting in its three paid subscription levels: Basic, Plus, and Visionary. The free version of ProtonVPN does not support torrenting.

If you want a risk-free way to try ProtonVPN for file sharing, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee on the paid plans.

P2P-Optimized servers

ProtonVPN offers high-performance servers specially configured for torrenting and other P2P activities, which torrenters are encouraged to use. You can find them by looking for the two-arrow icon in the server list.

If you’re not based somewhere close to these countries, you’ll likely experience some connection slowdowns when connecting to these servers.

Trying to torrent on a non-P2P optimized server may lead to an error message or a P2P VPN redirect. This is because a number of the data centers ProtonVPN rents its servers from do not allow P2P traffic.

As a solution, the provider uses a ‘Stateful Firewall’ that identifies P2P traffic and re-routes it to another VPN server that does permit torrenting.

Importantly, ProtonVPN assures us that this firewall works without logging any identifiable information or seeing any of the files you’re downloading.

While it is impressive that ProtonVPN offers P2P-optimized servers, it is a shame that they are available in a limited number of locations and that you may be blocked from torrenting on ProtonVPN’s other servers.

Safe Jurisdiction

If you’re looking for a safe place to host a VPN service, ProtonVPN’s home country of Switzerland is a fantastic location for three main reasons:

1. Switzerland has strong privacy laws, so ProtonVPN is not required to store data on users.
2. Switzerland is outside the EU, so it’s not subject to EU data retention laws.
3. Switzerland is not in the 14 Eyes alliance of countries that engage in mass surveillance of internet users.

You can torrent with ProtonVPN comforted by the fact that Switzerland is a safe jurisdiction that is unlikely to force a VPN company to record and store customer data.

We discuss VPN jurisdictions and more in our beginner’s introduction to VPNs here.

Very Private Logging Policy

Some VPN services keep logs of user behavior. This completely defeats the point of using a VPN for torrenting because it means your activity is still being recorded.

Thankfully, ProtonVPN operates a minimal logging policy. The only thing it stores is a timestamp of when you last logged in, which it uses to protect your account against unauthorized use.

There’s no record of where you signed in from, how long you were logged in, or what you accessed. What’s more, your previous timestamp is overwritten every time you log in for a new session.

This is about as minimal as logging can be.

If a court ever ordered ProtonVPN to disclose user information, it simply wouldn’t be able to. There isn’t any recorded data to reveal.

This happened in January 2019, when a Swiss court approved a request from a foreign country asking for user data. “As we do not have any customer IP information, we could not provide the requested information and this was explained to the requesting party,” wrote ProtonVPN.

You can also obtain a ProtonVPN account anonymously, without providing any personal identifying information, by paying with Bitcoin (instead of credit/debit card or PayPal).

Speed Tests

ProtonVPN promises “blazing fast speeds,” and we did experience reasonably fast performance when connecting to a local server. We saw just a 7% drop in download speed on a UK-to-UK connection.

Sadly, ProtonVPN does not perform anywhere near as well on international connections. It’s easily outperformed when torrenting with Surfshark, or other torrent-friendly VPNs like NordVPN and IPVanish.

This is particularly disappointing given ProtonVPN’s limited range of P2P-friendly server locations. If they’re not near your physical location, your connection speed might suffer.

We also ran a standardized torrenting speed test by downloading a copyright-free video file over our 100Mbps broadband connection.

We timed how long it took to download, and divided the file size by the time taken, so that we could calculate the bitrate.

It’s important to note that we tested the ProtonVPN Plus plan to get these speeds. The connection speed will likely be slower on ProtonVPN Basic and ProtonVPN Free. This is because these plans offer fewer servers, and the more congested a VPN server is, the slower it will run.

ProtonVPN explains this in detail on the company website:

Strong Security Features

ProtonVPN has a modern, comprehensive set of security features to protect your data and your privacy, which make it ideal for torrenting. These include:

• Secure protocols: OpenVPN is the most secure VPN protocol and it’s available in all of ProtonVPN’s apps. The Android and macOS apps also support IKEv2 as an alternative option. ProtonVPN says it doesn’t use PPTP or L2TP/IPSec anywhere, even though they’re cheaper. That’s good news, because both of those protocols offer weaker security than OpenVPN.
• Strong encryption: ProtonVPN traffic is encrypted using the AES-256 encryption cipher, the pinnacle of data encryption.
• Perfect Forward Secrecy: Each VPN session uses a different encryption key. If the encryption key is cracked, only the current session is vulnerable. Previous sessions that may have been stored by bad actors and any future sessions yet to come cannot be decrypted with the same key.
• Transparency: ProtonVPN is leading the way in transparency. It was one of the first VPN providers to publish the source code for its software, which means that anyone can see how ProtonVPN works and check it for security vulnerabilities. The company has also submitted its apps to be audited by an independent third-party.
• Kill switch: If your connection to the VPN drops, there is a risk that your real IP address could be exposed to your ISP or other torrenters in the swarm. To avoid this, ProtonVPN includes a built-in kill switch for Windows and macOS, which blocks all network traffic if the VPN fails. There’s also an ‘Always-on’ feature for iOS and Android which automatically re-establishes a connection to the VPN server.

Fully Featured

You’ll probably want to use your VPN for everything you do, so it’s good to know that ProtonVPN also works well with Netflix and BBC iPlayer, has Tor integration for increased anonymity, and includes DNS leak protection to shield your web browsing. Read our full ProtonVPN review for a complete overview.

A VPN is essential to protect your privacy while torrenting. It will shield your traffic and hide your identity from a number of potential onlookers, including:

• Other torrenters
• Your ISP
• Government agencies
• Copyright holders
• Anyone else looking to spy on your internet activity

When you use a VPN, your real IP address cannot be seen by the sites or services you connect to, and the files you download are encrypted so anyone snooping on the connection cannot tell what they are.

Your ISP will monitor and record your torrenting activity if you don’t encrypt your internet traffic. You may find that your connection is throttled or file-sharing websites are blocked. Torrenting copyright-protected material is illegal, and your ISP might take action if it sees you doing so. It could send you a warning, or share its evidence with content owners and copyright enforcement agencies.

ISPs are not the only ones recording torrenting traffic, either. There are third parties creating huge databases of torrenting activity and IP addresses. You have to assume that everything you do in a torrenting client will be traced to you, unless you take evasive action to protect your identity.

Other torrenters you are sharing files with will see your IP address if you don’t use a VPN to hide it. It’s possible that this could be linked to your real-life identity, exposing you to the risk of targeted harassment, malware, and scams.

Copyright holders and their legal representatives sometimes participate in file-sharing communities so they can find users who may be infringing their copyright. They can then ask ISPs to send legal correspondence to the users they have identified.

Penalties for copyright infringement are strong. In the US, for example, you could face a million-dollar fine, and in the UK the maximum sentence for copyright infringement is ten years in prison.

Even if you’re not torrenting files illegally, it makes sense to protect your privacy. Copyright trolls are companies that hunt for copyright violations so they can make money from settlements or litigation. They have a strong financial motive to pursue action against suspected copyright infringers. They’ve been known to harass users who do not breach copyright laws, so you’re better off protecting your privacy to avoid the risk of having to deal with them.

Not every VPN is safe for torrenting though. Some VPNs keep logs of your activities, defeating the point of having a VPN to protect your privacy. Some countries are engaged in mass surveillance of citizens, making them a poor choice for locating a VPN server. You need a VPN with essential security features such as strong encryption and a kill switch to stop your IP address being leaked if the VPN drops.

ProtonVPN is not the best VPN for torrenting, but it is a safe and reliable service that will protect your privacy with fast speeds and zero data leaks.

Here’s a summary of ProtonVPN’s strengths and weaknesses.

PROS

• P2P traffic support
• More than 200 P2P-optimized servers
• Privacy-friendly jurisdiction
• Minimal logging
• Kill switch to protect against connection outages
• Strong encryption

CONS

• Slower speeds than leading torrenting VPNs
• Limited choice of locations for P2P-optimized servers
• Not all P2P-optimized servers available on Basic plan
• Free plan does not support torrenting

ProtonVPN is technically robust with the strong encryption you would hope for in a VPN, servers optimized for torrenting, and a kill switch to protect your IP address if the VPN goes down. In short: ProtonVPN is a safe VPN that will protect you while torrenting.

We’d love to see more servers optimized for torrenting, including on the Basic plan which has a particularly restricted selection available. We’d also welcome an overall speed improvement in order for ProtonVPN to close the gap with the market-leading VPNs.

Here is a table comparing the torrenting performance of each ProtonVPN subscription plan:

	Free	Basic	Plus	Visionary
Supports P2P?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
# of P2P Locations	0	12	12	12
# of P2P Servers	0	60+	190+	190+
Simultaneous Devices	1	2	5	10
Monthly Price (2-year plan)	Free	$3.29	$6.63	$24

Remember that connection speeds relate to the size of the server network, so the Plus and Visionary plans are likely to be faster than the Basic and Free options.

The free plan doesn’t support torrenting at all, so if you can’t afford to pay for a VPN, check out our guide to the best free VPNs for torrenting.

When it comes to using a VPN for torrenting, here are our top three recommendations:

1ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN is the best VPN for torrenting as of March 2022. P2P traffic is permitted on each of its 3,000 servers in 94 locations, compared to ProtonVPN’s 190+ servers in twelve locations. Because there are so many torrenting-friendly servers, it means there’s less congestion and downloads are faster.

ExpressVPN also uses the strongest encryption standards and a reliable kill switch called Network Block. The company is headquartered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), putting it safely outside the 14 Eyes alliance.

ExpressVPN costs a little bit more than ProtonVPN, but we consider it to be worth it for the quality of service.

2PrivateVPN

In our extensive torrenting tests, PrivateVPN came out as the second-best torrenting VPN. It is a slower service than ExpressVPN but faster than ProtonVPN. It operates a strict no logs policy, uses secure AES-256 encryption, and has a number of other security features including a kill switch.

All of PrivateVPN’s servers can be used for torrenting, but the network is smaller than ExpressVPN at just 200 servers.

Be aware that PrivateVPN is headquartered in Sweden, a 14 Eyes member country. In theory, this is a privacy concern, however since the company claims not to collect any data about user activities, it shouldn’t be an issue.

PrivateVPN is significantly cheaper than both ExpressVPN and ProtonVPN so it’s a good choice for someone looking for a budget-friendly yet fully-featured VPN.

3NordVPN

NordVPN is faster than ExpressVPN, PrivateVPN, and ProtonVPN when it comes to torrenting. Not all of its servers support P2P traffic, but there are over 1,300 specifically optimized servers to choose from, spread across 45 of the 59 countries NordVPN operates in.

NordVPN is headquartered in Panama, a privacy haven. It offers a no-logs policy, a kill switch, and strong encryption. It’s also good for Netflix streaming and works well with BBC iPlayer and Amazon Prime Video.

The monthly price is similar to ExpressVPN, but if you’re willing to sign up to a three year plan it is one of the best value VPNs around.