Just remember that without a vpn, any torrent client is still basically broadcasting your ip and what you are downloading
Is there a sexual deviant in your house? Find out now!
You mean, like another one?
Funny way to get to know your neighbors (cg-nat and all of that)
Yea babe, it’s called cgnat. That is why our neighbours filthy downloads look like it’s coming from our house.
Yes, there is. I’m it.
I think a lot of nontechnical people or computer newbies have an assumption in their head that if you want free shit, you’ll have to pay in other ways, like with advertising or tracking. It’s just the way of the world that nothing is free. There’s no free lunch. If a bittorrent client that you use to get free movies has ads, there must be no better options. We’re bombarded with this idea constantly. Television, radio, streaming, social media. You get it for free but pay with your attention to ads. We’ve all been this person at some point.
Then you discover that there are other options, that there are groups of passionate nerds dedicating half of their lives to making useful stuff, distributing it to the world, and expecting nothing in return. This can’t be real, right? What’s the catch? I thought making software was so hard and boring that nobody would do it in exchange for nothing. But it’s real. All this time you’ve been using crap software that nags you to try their other product, promotes products which have no earthly use, secretly captures information you expect to remain private, but there was this amazing thing outside the castle walls which does none of that. How did I not know about this before? Who are these altruistic people? I want to meet them.
Then you dig in more and find out about the free software movement. Some old hippie at MIT was mad he couldn’t get his printer working because the manufacturer refused to supply the source code. He saw software being closed up and becoming industrial rather than academic, transitioning to making a profit, and couldn’t bear it. Then we got linux, and all the systems around it, and all the distros, and there was once IBM who created the open PC standard, the copyleft/permissive division over licenses, and so on. Somewhere in the world, there is a 14-year-old learning about all this for the first time just as we did, and maybe it’s all a little different because of AI and smartphones and that Stallman is more well-known to be sort of a creep, but it’s still part of the history for how we got to where we are today.
It dawns on you that uTorrent is a trick and qBittorrent is the genuine, real deal. They’re both “free” but one of them is more free than the other. One claims to be free, but was only created to make somebody passive income for eternity. The other is a bittorent client, a devoted implementation of a specification for an open protocol (the most basic of which is only a few pages long). Bittorrent is simple, fundamental infrastructure and there’s absolutely no reason a client needs to show you ads or siphon away your data.
First, I want to express my appreciation for the post. It’s well written and thought provoking. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
I was the person you described in the first paragraph until the last few years, starting with my first Linux distro. It was the doorway into a world of amazingly functional yet free software.
I’m still gratefully surprised on a regular basis at the sheer amount and scope of FOSS. I spent the evening rooting my LG TV, the one product I most grudgingly enjoyed (fuck LG’s surveillance) and not only was I able to disable said surveillance, but tweaking some settings and installing a few homebrewed applications has made my TV so much better. Even the Plex application, PlxNative, is leagues better than stock.
Now I look like some sort of tech wizard to my family, but all of this is truly due to the contributions of the very community you describe - I’m just a monkey that can read a guide and push buttons. The real fucking wizards here are those contributing to these projects.
After degoogling I noticed that FOSS usually comes with less convenience and maturity, so you choose either your data or you loose the bells and whistles.
Depends on where in the curve the enshittification of the competition has become. Windows 11 seems like convenience and maturity, until you realize that desktop Linux has been a far more functional product for years, and it doesn’t what you take, take, take from you every chance it can get.
Photoshop seems like convenience and maturity, until you realize you have options that don’t want to charge you hundreds of dollars a month.
Hell, after using both Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve, I just flat out prefer the latter. And the improvements Blackmagic has put out for the last few major releases prove that they will continue to improve their software. Granted, Resolve isn’t exactly FOSS, but it is free, and I can at least respect them way way more than Adobe’s shitty business models.
uTorrent has been compromised for years. I like Transmission for its simplicity.
Yeah nearly 20 years I think. It’s not open either. If you can’t figure this out god help you rawdogging the internet with torrents.
Switched from Transmission to web-qBittorrent. Easy switch woth docker and Ive been happier. For transparency I rarely use it, though.
100%. I stopped using them a very long time ago after they changed their UI to what it is now. I realized then it was compromised because the UI no longer served a useful purpose and instead prioritized visuals and engagement.
It’s interesting how a UI overhaul can be a red flag. Recently for me it was Bitwarden’s overhaul a little while back with all the cute emoji like graphics and rounded corners and stuff
Proton vpn is next on my chopping block.
Nice, I’ve been looking over alternatives for exactly that myself. Let me know if you find a good one. This world sure is in a state
You can also run qBittorrent in a docker container behind an always on VPN. Very nice for those with a little arr in their lives. 🏴☠️
Yes qbittorrent and gluetun in a docker container is very handy.
It took me a while to figure out gluetun. Once it’s all setup and configured correctly, it’s great !
Any resources you found handy to get you going? I am getting started with Docker and would love any advice!
The official documentation of the thing you want to setup is usually the best source of information.
For maximum privacy, I have qBittorrent on an air gapped system. Good luck catching me FBI!
/s
I took the above setup one step further and never plugged in the power!
Alternatively a server-only qBittorrent (controllable via the web-interface only) without docker (package: qbittorrent_nox) behind an always on VPN, configured to only bind to the network interface of the VPN so that it doesn’t send any data outside the VPN does the same but it’s much lighter so you can put it in shitty-shit hardware.
This is what I have in the cheap mini-PC which I use as Homeserver/NAS/TV Media Player.
I’ve been using a split tunnel to make sure qbit stays behind the VPN, but I like this idea too, feels like there’s some redundancy.
I actually run two instances of gluetun running two VPN seats configured for two different countries and a script that speed tests both every hour and switches what network is piped into qbit based on how fast the speed test was with some logic for if I am uploading more or downloading more on the client. Quite proud of it tbh.
This has been the case for at least like 15 years. Baffles me that people still don’t get the memo
What baffles me is why anyone still uses torrents when we have Usenet and Debrid services. Why wait for seeds, when you can just get a direct download of the exact same content at your internet connection’s maximum download speed?
I don’t think the vast majority of torrent users are waiting for seeds, they’re just grabbing current popular stuff with a zillion seeders that finishes downloading within a few minutes.
Aria2
Just setup the config file and use a vpn
Yeah, I ditched my first private tracker because they enforced use of uTorrent. Kickbacks I assume. I’ve heard they don’t anymore, but I still consider them compromised.
Transmission gang checking in.
I use qbittorrent, but I respect Transmission
Barely using either anymore.
*arr stack all talks to RealDebridClient just as if it were qbitorrent and it proxies torrent through debrid provider.
Thats how prowlarr gets all my Linux distros.
docker+VPN+transmission ftw.
I either use Transmission or FDM
Holy shit. Utorrent is still around??
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
How y’all feel about Tixati? I like it and think it’s great
Proprietary software for torrents?
The fact that it’s proprietary is a deal breaker for me.
I didn’t think uTorrent was still around.
It’s been malware for at least a decade, I think. It was good when it was first released but quickly went downhill.
i’m pretty sure version 2.2.1 was the last version before the corporate takeover and malware was baked in
