Is Surfshark a good choice for torrenting?

Torrenting nowadays is by far the most convenient and popular way to share files online. However, there are certain risks that come with torrenting, such as fines, IP address exposure, and speed throttling from your internet service provider (ISP). But using Surfshark VPN can help with that.

In this article, learn if and why Surfshark is a good choice for torrenting and how to set it up to torrent safely. Additionally, we did some speed tests so you could see for yourself if Surfshark is the right torrenting VPN for you.

Does Surfshark VPN allow torrenting?

Yes, Surfshark allows fast torrenting. Every Surfshark server supports P2P traffic. In fact, it is one of the best torrenting VPNs on the market right now, offering high speeds and unlimited bandwidth. On top of that, Surfshark’s prices are very affordable.

And while Surfshark doesn’t explicitly encourage torrenting by having specialised servers, during our numerous tests and trials, there have been no leaks or speed throttling on any Surfshark VPN server.

Why use Surfshark for torrenting?

If you’re looking for a torrenting VPN, here are some reasons why Surfshark is maybe the best VPN for this:

• Hide your IP address. When torrenting, your IP address is visible and accessible to anyone looking at the seeders’ list. Having your IP address exposed can be risky, as it can make you an easy target for DDoS attacks, or reveal your location for any unexpected and potentially unwanted visits.
• Hide from your ISP. It is known that your ISP can see what you’re doing online, because all of the data travels from your device through their infrastructure before it reaches necessary servers. A VPN encrypts the data, making it impossible to see your online activity, including torrenting.
• Avoid bandwidth throttling. When ISPs detect torrenting in your online traffic, they tend to throttle speeds, slowing down your download speed. A VPN will hide the fact that you’re torrenting, and your ISP will have no reason to throttle your download speed.
• Access restricted torrenting sites. In some places, governments restrict access to torrenting sites because they're used to share and distribute copyrighted content. However, using Surfshark will allow you to bypass these restrictions and access torrenting sites safely and anonymously.

Is Surfshark good and safe for torrenting?

Yes, Surfshark is a good and safe VPN for torrenting. Firstly, it uses market-leading encryption protocols to encrypt your traffic, making any online activities anonymous and invisible to anyone but you.

On top of that, the WireGuard is the fastest encryption protocol on the market right now, which allows for minimal internet speed slowdown when connected to a VPN server. This ensures not only safe, but also fast torrenting experience.

Additionally, Surfshark also has split tunneling, so you can route only the traffic from torrenting platforms through the VPN. The rest of apps and browsers will remain unaffected, allowing you to use the internet with your original speed.

And last but not least, Surfshark is a strict no-logs service that was also audited by Deloitte, proving that they don’t collect or log any user data. You will be able to browse without the fear of anyone ever seeing what you’re doing online, or what files you download.

How to torrent safely with Surfshark

Torrenting safely with Surfshark is really easy. All you need to do is to connect to any Surfshark’s VPN server, turn on the kill switch in case a secure connection is lost and launch your torrenting client as usual.

Setting up qBittorrent with Surfshark

Setting up Surfshark with qBittorrent is very simple. Just follow these steps below:

1. Download and install Surfshark onto your device
2. Launch the app and log into your account
3. Go to Settings and activate the Kill Switch
4. Connect to any server (we recommend choosing the fastest location)
5. Open your qBittorrent client and start torrenting

Setting up uTorrent with Surfshark

It's very easy to set up and use Surfshark with uTorrent. All you need to do is take the steps listed here:

1. Download Surfshark and install it onto your device
2. Open the application and log into your account
3. Go to Settings and turn on the Kill Switch
4. Connect to a server. We recommend choosing the fastest one
5. Launch your uTorrent client

Surfshark speed tests while torrenting

For your convenience, we did some Surfshark speed tests while torrenting. The size of the file was 3.11GB (2.9GiB). It is also important to note that different torrenting clients use different units for tracking speed. Therefore, we manually converted these values to megabits per second, as this is the most commonly used way to measure bandwidth.

• Baseline speed: 296 mbps download/297 mbps upload

qBittorent

uTorrent

As seen from the data, the speeds were significantly higher with the qBittorrent client than the uTorrent. However, this is most likely uTorrent's fault, not Surfshark's. The free version client's interface lagged a lot, and despite download speeds being very low, the page itself displayed 4K resolution ads on the side. This led us to believe that the available bandwidth was not, in fact, being used for downloading the file, but to load the ads.

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