I’m brand new to torrenting and was looking to pirate some audiobooks off AudiobookBay. I followed the Wispy Docs Torrent Client Guide on VPN Binding Mullvad VPN with qBittorrent. (I know Mullvad isn’t ideal but I want to use up my pre-existing subscription.)
My concern is that in Mullvad’s BitTorrent guide (no longer maintained) they suggest the following additional changes:
- Enable anonymous mode.
- Disable DHT
- Disable PeX
- Disable Local peer discovery
- Select TCP as Peer connection protocol
I tried searching on Reddit if I should follow any of these settings changes but people were very unclear. Some said they’re outdated because “private trackers yada yada” (I’m new so am unfamiliar with the reasoning) but I’m not sure if that applies to my situation.
I already tested with torrent IP checkers and the binding seems to have worked. What else (if anything) should I be doing?
And it’ll give my true IP rather than my VPNs IP even if it is binded in the client? If this is the case, why does there seem to be disagreement on whether this is a risk and there’s no mention of it in the actively maintained guide I initially followed?
Again, not accusing anyone of lying, I’m just trying to untangle this. I can try disabling DHT and PeX but I’m worried I won’t be able to torrent anything.
The BT client will advertise the IP(s) of whatever network interface(s) you allow it to use.
You will be unable to download most things without DHT these days. If you use transmission, you can explicitly bind it to the local IP within your VPN, so it literally cannot leak info onto another network.
This function exists in qbittorrent too.