You'd think this was the year of the Linux desktop or something given how many people want a VPN to download free and open source software via torrents. Yes, that's what you want torrents for, and if there's one thing you need when downloading free and open source software torrents, it's a secure and private internet connection. Seriously, aside from privacy, you should also consider speed and whether a VPN has servers and services that support torrenting. We go into more detail about what to look for in a VPN for torrenting below our picks. (For more information on all the VPN services we've tested, check out our roundup of the best VPNs for all kinds of uses).
So what's the best VPN for downloading your favorite flavor of Linux and maybe a bit of Open Office? Here are our top picks.
1. ProtonVPN: the best option without a doubt
ProtonVPN has some of the fastest speeds both upstream (1st place) and downstream (2nd place), which is useful when you want to spread the love of Open Office as quickly as possible. It also has great privacy promises, and it has a bunch of servers in a damn bunker, which is great. ProtonVPN has a great interface, its owner is well known, it's based in Switzerland, and did we mention solid speeds?
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ProtonVPN Review
2. OVPN
While not as well known as other services, OVPN is one of, if not the, the first pioneers in deploying diskless servers on your network, keeping everything in RAM. (That has since become common among VPN providers.) OVPN is based in Sweden, makes the right privacy promises, and while it's not in our top 10 for speeds, OVPN's speeds were very good overall. It only had a few weak spots, but if you stick to European servers (or North American ones for non-torrent uses), the speeds should be outstanding.
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OVPN Review
3. Mole
Mullvad is the ultimate VPN when it comes to privacy and anonymity. The Sweden-based company appreciates your business, but is not interested in knowing who you are. Instead of using an email and password combination, Mullvad randomly generates an account number that acts as your username and password. Mullvad is in the top 10 for speeds, and of course, their privacy promises are top notch.
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mole review
4.ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN is our favorite VPN, so it's no surprise that it's among the best options for torrenting. ExpressVPN does most of the right privacy promises, and its speeds are very good. It also has a lot of other features besides being good for torrenting that make it worthwhile, like the Smart DNS feature. ExpressVPN is officially based in the British Virgin Islands, has an absolute ton of servers, but monitors bandwidth usage to weed out bandwidth hogs, which could be a problem if you're constantly downloading nightly builds from various distros. of Linux.
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ExpressVPN Review
5.AirVPN
AirVPN is a great VPN for privacy, or the latest honeypot to attract online troublemakers like free and open source software torrents. The reason we say that is that the AirVPN team is largely anonymous, so it's not clear who runs the program. Still, this Italy-based VPN has a good reputation and its speeds put it in our top 10. Its desktop interface is very bare bones, but it's usable. Their network is not huge, but it is very cheap and works well.
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AirVPN Review
What to look for in VPN for torrenting
There are some strict rules that you need from a VPN when downloading torrents. First of all, you want a VPN service provider that allows torrenting on their network. Most do, but there are a few notable exceptions, like Tunnel Bear, which actively blocks torrents.
Then there are VPNs that partially block torrents, especially on US servers like TorGuard. This VPN service recently settled a lawsuit brought against it by a consortium of Hollywood production companies after it was discovered that TorGuard users were downloading torrent files that they were not free and open source software. As a result, TorGuard promised to stop allowing torrents on its US servers.
TorGuard is not the only company rejecting torrents on its US servers. Keep Solid recently promised to block torrents and piracy sites like The Pirate Bay, YTS, and RARBG on the US servers of its VPN Unlimited service.
Several other VPN services are also involved in pending legal action, including ExpressVPN and ZenMate, as reported by TorrentFreak. On top of that, many other VPN services don't want to end up in a lawsuit like their competitors and actively reject torrenting on their US servers.
For that reason, we recommend using VPN services that are located outside of the US, and from those VPNs you should use servers located in countries that are friendlier to torrenting. This avoids the problem of dealing with torrents crashing completely when all you want to do is load up Ubuntu on that new laptop. Most VPN services will specify which servers allow torrenting, but a popular and easy option is Sweden. Speeds are usually good and most services include Swedish servers on their networks along with many other countries that support torrenting.
The next thing you want is a VPN that has an unbreakable no-logs promise from the service provider, because no one wants to be exposed to downloading free and open source software. That means the service must include a promise to keep no logs of any kind, with everything going to /dev/null, a non-existent directory on Linux systems which means all logs are permanently lost.
We say "promise" as there is no real way to know for sure that a VPN is not logging your activity. Ultimately, you have to trust that they're not. This trust can come from a few factors, in order of reputation: the company's zero-logs promise has been proven by a court challenge, numerous third-party audits have verified the service's claims, or you can simply take the company at its word: Oh
Finally, after those details have been verified, you want a VPN with solid speeds. Torrents can take a long time to download as is, depending on how many people share the file. The last thing you want is to see your download slowed down by poor quality VPN speeds.
To get the VPN you need for torrenting, just bring all those attributes together: it allows torrenting, promises absolutely zero logs, torrent-friendly services and servers outside of the US, and excellent speeds.
How we test
If you have read several of these VPN articles, you already know the procedure. We tested on three different days taking the average speeds we found in five different countries (each country is tested three times a day). We then take all of those daily averages to get an overall global average in megabytes per second. We then compare that to the base speed without a VPN, and then express the result as a percentage of the base speed that maintains the global average. If there are particularly notable speeds in a certain country or region, we'll usually mention those as well.
The reason we don't quote specific speeds is that they can vary based on all sorts of factors, like your location, ISP, home network load and equipment, etc. However, the percentages give you a good general idea of โโthe drop you can expect when connecting to a VPN โ there is always a drop.
Another factor torrent users will want to know is that we read the privacy policy of each and every VPN we cover. Yes, it is painful. The reason we do this is that a VPN may promise up front not to track your web browsing, only to find out later that it actually logs IP addresses, timestamps, and bandwidth used. So we dug into the details so you can find out exactly what the VPNs we reviewed promise.
However, with that knowledge, you can be sure that you are getting good value for your money.
Most VPNs are likely to work well for torrenting, but if you want the best of the best, here are our recommendations.
