Paid providers are known for incredible torrenting capabilities thanks to unlimited traffic and fast speeds. When talking about the top free VPNs for torrenting, people are often disappointed because they aren’t as capable. In fact, most free providers forbid P2P traffic!
This is exacerbated by small server fleets and oftentimes, overcrowded servers with frequent instabilities. Today, however, we will talk about exactly that – free P2P VPN services. If you’re on a shoestring budget and you can’t afford a proper VPN for torrents, you’re in the right place.
We’ll talk about the best free services for torrent downloads that you don’t need to pay for. In addition, we’ll also go over a few premium providers that you can use risk-free, that are going to be much better. There’s something for everyone, so keep reading to find out more.
Why We Don’t Recommend Free VPNs for Torrenting?
At the very start of this guide, we mentioned that free VPNs and torrenting usually don’t mix together. While many of them offer P2P capabilities, many of them – if not more – forbid it openly. That’s not the main issue because you aren’t going to be using these providers anyway.
The problem lies in many other factors, such as limited bandwidth. We’re talking about not more than 10 GB a month, which isn’t enough for constant downloading/uploading or seeding. Another problem is that free services offer slower servers – usually 1 Gbps.
This results in drastic speed reductions that make the downloading process tedious. Many free providers aren’t safe, and for us, this is a gigantic red flag. When looking to use a free VPN for torrent downloads, you must pick a provider that’s safe and secure.
Well, many of them don’t have a no-logs policy and they fail to properly encrypt your connection. For instance, Urban VPN is known for frequent leaks, on top of which, it stores an enormous amount of information about your IP, connection logs, etc.
Torrenting is a quite dangerous practice because your ISP can monitor your activities. Plus, other peers in the network can see your original IP, making you an easy target for hackers. Free providers, on top of being limited in terms of performance and traffic, aren’t very secure.
That said, using a free VPN for torrenting most likely won’t meet your demands, except if they’re extremely low.
Free Torrent VPNs: Use Them Risk-Free For Up to 45 Days!
For these reasons, we decided to talk about premium providers first. By premium, we mean providers that require payment before they can be used. However, there’s a trick that enables you to use them for free for up to 45 days.
Today, we’ll present you with two of them, after which, we’ll discuss the best really free VPNs for P2P in 2024.
ExpressVPN: Risk-Free for 30 Days
The first provider for today is ExpressVPN – a well-known paid provider. It’s simply the best choice on the market, offering its annual plan with a 49% discount and 3 free months. On top of that, ExpressVPN’s unlimited bandwidth and fast speeds are accompanied by a 30-day refund policy.
This policy applies to all plans, which means you can use ExpressVPN free of charge for 30 days. How? Well, the trick is to get it, preferably using the button below where you can get the special discount we mentioned. If not, you can always go for the monthly plan, albeit, with no discount.
Torrent Endlessly With ExpressVPN for FREE
From here, you’ll be able to install the provider and use it limitlessly as a free VPN for torrenting. With no limits, you can download thousands of gigabytes of material without crossing the red line. Now, to make sure you lose nothing, the trick is to request a refund in the first 30 days.
Simply contact the provider through live chat on the site and request it. If they ask you why you want a refund, say that you don’t need the VPN anymore. After this, they’ll issue a refund immediately, giving you your hard-earned money pretty much the same day.
Why Use ExpressVPN for Torrenting?
For P2P activities, it’s crucial to use a provider with the best performance and security. ExpressVPN has 3,000 servers in 105 countries, all of which are perfectly optimized for torrenting. As the best free P2P VPN for 30 days, it also packs 10 Gbps servers for incredible performance.
We found ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol to be amazing, as it works well for fast downloads and keeps you safe. Speaking of that, the provider uses AES-256 encryption for securing your traffic, backed by a kill switch and reliable IP/DNS leak protection.
Furthermore, thanks to a no-logging policy, your download history won’t be stored. What’s more, ExpressVPN even uses RAM-only servers, ensuring no personal data stays on the server for longer than it’s needed. Private DNS is another excellent security feature that prevents ISP monitoring.
Needless to say, this is a very user-friendly VPN. It works properly on all devices, so you can even use the VPN for BitTorrent on your Android, Linux, or macOS devices. Not to mention its 5 simultaneous connections, all of which will make the provider extremely useful for families and groups of friends.
This provider will work on Popcorn Time as well, and in terms of streaming, it’s the best choice in 2024. Our team recommends it for security enthusiasts who don’t want to worry about their privacy each time they go online. In this regard, you can be sure ExpressVPN will do its job.
Despite being a paid service, its 30-day refund policy makes things so much easier. If you’re not Rockefeller – and you don’t need to be – you can still enjoy it for free for 30 days and obtain a refund. This sounds pretty fair, despite being somewhat less fair for the company itself!
CyberGhost: A Risk-Free VPN for 45 Days
CyberGhost is one of our top free VPNs for torrenting for 45 days. Yes, instead of a 30-day money-back guarantee, the provider bumps things up to a whopping 45 days for all long-term plans. While the monthly plan has a 14-day refund policy, not many people buy it, honestly.
Its 2-year plan is dirt-cheap and aside from a 45-day refund period, it comes with a silly monthly price of just around two dollars. Not that you’ll have to pay for it indefinitely, as the 45-day refund policy is unconditional. In other words, everything we said about ExpressVPN applies to this provider.
Download Torrents With CyberGhost for Free
This means you can subscribe and get an exclusive deal above, after which, CyberGhost will be yours. Before the first 45 days expire, it is possible to get a refund if you request it. The company won’t create any problems and will refund you the same day.
Just make sure to contact it during this period, answer why you want a refund, and you’re all set. This is how you use a premium provider as a free VPN for torrenting. Albeit, this trick won’t work if you’re abusing it, as the company won’t give you indefinite refunds every time you request them.
Why Download Torrents With CyberGhost?
CyberGhost is excellent for streaming on Hulu anywhere thanks to dedicated streaming servers. However, the provider even packs torrenting servers, which you can find on Windows. These servers are optimized for P2P, providing staggering speeds and performance.
Even better is that it sports 9,500 servers in more than 91 countries, with P2P servers in almost all of them. This allows you to swiftly choose the closest server to get the best performance, be it with WireGuard, OpenVPN, or IKEv2 protocols.
CyberGhost’s cheap price doesn’t dictate its quality. Therefore, the VPN still offers AES-256 encryption, a kill switch, and even an ad blocker. Split tunneling is here too, and in its app, you’ll find IPv6 and DNS leak protection which ensures total privacy at any moment.
Furthermore, the VPN app has something called NoSpy servers. These servers are great for added security, as they’re operated by CyberGhost and based in Romania. This privacy-friendly jurisdiction also allows the company to not keep any logs, hence a verified zero-logging policy.
Unlike its brother, CyberGhost will give you 7 simultaneous connections on a single account. To that, we should add overwhelming device support that includes even Smart TVs and Fire TV Stick. CyberGhost’s Smart DNS functionality is welcome too, and all of its servers are based on RAM.
As a result, CyberGhost is a reliable free VPN for torrenting for 45 days. It’s risk-free and even gives you 24/7 live chat support in English, French, and German. This makes it far more versatile and useful even for non-English-speaking users.
Best REALLY Free VPNs for Torrenting (No Credit Card)
Using a paid provider as the best free VPN for torrenting means you can’t enjoy it for free forever. As a result, people looking for a permanent solution might be disappointed. If you go back to the start of the article, you’ll see that we promised another thing – forever free P2P VPNs.
We just hope you read the beginning well because these services aren’t as they seem to be. Still, knowing their shortcomings and limits, we still did our research and cherry-picked the top 3 really free VPNs for downloading torrents in 2024. They don’t require your credit card either – just a simple free account!
1. Atlas VPN
Atlas VPN is a provider whose quality and reliability we know. It’s a premium service often compared to NordVPN (check our Atlas VPN vs NordVPN duel) because of their correlation. This makes Atlas VPN incredibly safe and secure even though it costs nothing if you opt for a free version.
For the start, it offers solid speeds with 256-bit encryption and a certified no-logging policy. Its superb IP leak protection guarantees safe torrenting, coupled with RAM-only servers for added privacy. Atlas VPN is easy to use, on top of that, and its apps allow for one-click connections.
In fact, the provider can also unblock a few streaming services, which comes as a big surprise. And, should we even mention that it’s fully P2P-compatible? On the flip side, it has just 3 server locations, out of which 2 are in the US and 1 in the Netherlands.
However, the biggest problem is that it has a limited monthly bandwidth of just 5 GB. This makes it incredibly hard to download larger files without running out of bandwidth allowance. Atlas VPN’s paid version alleviates the bandwidth limit, but as a premium VPN, it’s not the best.
Also, the provider doesn’t support any simultaneous connections. This means you can use this free VPN for torrents only on one device. 24/7 live chat support also isn’t here, as it’s reserved for premium users who pay for their VPN subscription regularly.
All in all, it will let you download torrents – that’s not our worry. If you’re not demanding and you need only a few small files downloaded each month, it’s okay. But if you’re a heavy torrent user and you want to seed or upload torrents, you’re in for a major disheartenment.
Pros
- Good torrenting speeds
- All server locations are P2P-optimized
- No-logging policy
- Bank-grade encryption
Cons
- 10 GB monthly bandwidth allowance
- 24/7 live chat support only for premium users
- Just 3 server locations
- Poor streaming capabilities
2. PrivadoVPN
PrivadoVPN is a surprisingly good free VPN that supports torrenting. It’s a provider we often recommend if you want blazing-fast speeds with a good server size of 12 server locations. For a free VPN, this is a pretty good number, especially if you know that all servers are torrent-friendly.
Thus, you’ll just need to pick the closest server, connect to it, and start downloading. Another perk of PrivadoVPN lies in its security. It’s based in Switzerland, offering a no-logging policy, albeit, with no third-party audits. In-app features are nothing short of awesome.
There’s bank-grade encryption with IP leak prevention and a kill switch. The service uses WireGuard as a default protocol, so connection speeds are impressive. Heck, there’s even 24/7 live chat support for all your issues, some of which, unfortunately, can’t be fixed.
One of them is a 10 GB bandwidth cap, which will plague all your torrenting attempts. Despite being fast, the VPN’s annoying limit won’t let you torrent for long. Also, PrivadoVPN doesn’t seem to have a dedicated Linux VPN app, so it requires a manual setup.
This is in contrast to ExpressVPN which supports all systems. As said, PrivadoVPN has no audits, making it less trustworthy than the two premium providers we presented. On the brighter side, it’s actually pretty good for streaming, even working with a few Netflix libraries.
But, as it’s the case with free providers, there’s this annoying bandwidth limit that’ll keep you on a leash. If you want uncapped bandwidth, you’ll have to purchase the premium version. This isn’t a smart idea, as ExpressVPN and CyberGhost are infinitely better as they’re paid VPNs.
Pros
- Reliable performance
- WireGuard ensures fast downloads
- Automatic kill switch
- 12 server locations (all P2P-friendly)
Cons
- No dedicated client for Linux
- Limited to 10 GB a month
- Its premium plans could be cheaper
- No security audits
3. Hide.me
Okay, so we have Hide.me on the last spot. We recently tested Hide.me and can tell you the provider is more than great. However, this applies to its premium version. The free version supports P2P on all of its 8 locations, which is excellent for quick and easy torrenting.
Moreover, Hide.me is a solid performer as well, which comes as a result of 10 Gbps servers and native WireGuard support. Its free version requires an account, which you can make easily. After that, you can enjoy a full-fledged no-ad experience that many users are longing for.
This provider doesn’t allow streaming, unfortunately, but its torrenting speeds are sublime. On top of that, there’s 24/7 support through live chat, along with extensive device coverage. Shortcomings are ubiquitous and include – again – an annoying 10 GB bandwdith cap and other issues.
The service offers just 8 locations, which won’t be enough for getting over geo-restrictions efficiently. Additionally, Hide.me lacks many of its premium features, such as an ad blocker, and some Lab features like Bolt (Fast Proxy), MultiHop, and a plethora of others.
Our team likes Hide.me because it’s safe, though. Its no-logging policy has a third-party audit from Leon Juranic, while its bank-grade encryption makes sure your torrenting endeavors are secure. Being one of the best free VPNs for torrenting, you can expect it to display no dangerous leaks.
This is all wrapped up in easy-to-use apps that you can install on any platform. Hide.me works on iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, alas, with no simultaneous connections. Its paid version will gladly remedy all the problems, as long as you’re willing to pay a hefty price.
Pros
- It stores no logs
- Support for all systems/devices
- No IP/DNS leaks
Cons
- 10 GB of monthly traffic
- It lacks MultiHop & ad blocker
- Only 8 server locations
- Expensive premium plans
Which Free VPNs Ban Torrenting in 2024?
The providers we presented are perfect examples of free P2P VPNs that allow torrenting, with the exception of traffic limits. For your convenience, we decided to include free VPNs that don’t allow P2P traffic so that you don’t lose your time on them.
ProtonVPN
ProtonVPN is a top-notch free service that, unfortunately, forbids torrenting. This provider has unlimited traffic but its P2P block makes it useless for this purpose. Such a shame because it would’ve been one of the top free VPNs for torrents.
ProtonVPN is based in Switzerland and offers a no-logging policy, with an impressive array of security features for a free service. Sadly, if you want to use it for P2P activities, you’ll have to pay for it, which we don’t recommend because it’s not the cheapest.
TunnelBear
TunnelBear’s tiny 2 GB monthly limit sounds quite funny when you think about it. While the three providers we presented offer 10 GB, this one offers 5 times less – such a pity. The provider completely forbids P2P traffic, which we actually found out during our test.
Regardless of which VPN server you’re using, you’ll find that torrenting won’t work, as displayed above. You’ll get no seeds and peers, so your downloads won’t start. Disconnecting from the VPN fixes the issue, but then, you’re exposed to your ISP as a result.
It’s better to avoid TunnelBear and use ExpressVPN instead.
Urban VPN
Urban VPN is a service to avoid at all costs. This provider offers unlimited bandwidth like ProtonVPN and it even packs a good server fleet with dozens of locations. Our torrenting attempts with it were met with no success, as the service doesn’t support P2P.
That’s actually not bad, as the provider is riddled with problems. They include intrusive logging, IP/DNS leaks, weak encryption, and a general lack of security features. Urban VPN is a provider we’d never recommend except if you’re looking to ruin your privacy and make your life worse.
Conclusion
In the end, it’s time to digress on everything we said in this article. The best free VPN for torrenting doesn’t exist if we’re talking about really free VPNs. In all honesty, all of them offer limited bandwidth, which you won’t find too exciting as an active torrent user.
Sure – occasional downloads can work, as long as they’re not larger than a few gigabytes. But if you want a reliable provider with no traffic/performance limits, you’ll have to pay for one. ExpressVPN is our #1 choice, although a cheaper option like CyberGhost will work equally well.
Our friendly advice is to always take care of your privacy when torrenting. With free providers, you never know how safe and secure you are. On the other side, the two premium providers we mentioned have numerous accolades and third-party audits, in addition to other relevant features.
For us, the choice is obvious. And if, for you, it isn’t, find more information about paid and free VPNs and their differences on our site.
Try ExpressVPN Risk-Free Today
FAQ
Let’s address a few more questions related to torrenting with free VPNs.
Are free VPNs safe for torrenting?
The ones we presented today are. However, there are dozens, if not hundreds of free VPNs that we don’t recommend for P2P. Aside from their annoying limits, they also tend to store logs and fail to encrypt your traffic, making them quite dangerous to even attempt to download torrents.
Can you torrent with a free proxy?
No. Free proxies are going to encrypt your traffic only inside the browser and not torrent clients. As a result, your downloads are unencrypted and visible to your ISP. For this purpose, you want to encrypt every bit of incoming and outgoing traffic, which only VPNs can do.
How to use a free provider for P2P?
There’s nothing easier, really. You just need to follow these steps:
- Download a free VPN from our list.
- Install it on your device (Linux, Windows, macOS, or Android).
- Open the VPN and connect to the nearest.
- Start downloading torrents for free but beware of the 10 GB bandwidth cap – it’s quite annoying.
