Safest torrent downloading

With this said, we're going to do our best to teach you how to use torrents safely. More precisely, we will show you how to find healthy P2P files, download one to your computer, and help the rest of the global P2P community by seeding torrent files. Before we jump to teaching you how to use torrents, we have an important note for you. You've probably heard that torrent websites are blocked by certain ISPs Internet Service Providers and that they're banned in certain countries.

So, even if you want nothing other than to download legal torrents we recommend you avoid copyright infringement , your ISP might block your attempts. This is why we also recommend reading about anonymizing your torrent traffic and encrypting your P2P data.

Make sure to cover the basic well before learning how to use torrents, as this will most certainly go a long way. The world of torrenting is full of obstacles. Getting caught torrenting can also force your ISP to cut off your connection to the Web. Finally, we're ready to jump deep into helping you discover how to use torrents safely in Before you can download P2P files, you need to install an application capable of downloading torrents. It means that in order for your computer to recognize and download torrents, it needs to have access to a torrent client.

So, the first step is to download and install an application that handles torrents. We have recently published an article that deals with the best torrent clients overall. You can also check the best torrent clients for macOS. As you'll see, many of those applications come free-of-charge some of those are premium-priced, though. In addition, these are lightweight applications that can run on just about any machine. Also, installing a torrent client is done in the same way as installing any application on your computer.

We'll also advise you to download torrent clients from their official websites, as this is the best way to avoid malware. You don't want to end up with a modified torrent client that takes advantage of your privacy. So, download your chosen P2P client and install it on your computer, and then continue reading this guide.

No matter if you want to download an application, movie, or music, you first need to have a torrent file at your disposal. This is where torrent tracker sites come into play. There are two types of torrent tracker sites:. To help you find some good options based on your needs, we'll provide niche options as well.

There are two flavours: the stripped-back Vuze Leap, and the fully fledged Vuze Plus. Both offer torrent download, media playback and support for magnet file links, but Vuze Plus adds integrated virus protection and the ability to preview media files. One of Vuze's key selling points is its interface, which slices through jargon and makes even the more advanced features accessible to new users.

Vuze also offers bandwidth limiting, IP filtering, and all the other features you'd expect from a robust torrent client.

Definitely one of the first options to consider. Read our full Vuze review. Deluge has been around forever, and it can be as simple or as powerful as you want it to be, making it one of the most versatile free torrent clients out there.

That's because it's extendable via plug-ins, which effectively enable you to build your own personalised version of Deluge. Fancy something that resembles uTorrent without the unwanted software? No problem. Want to add alphabetical downloading, move downloaded files to specific directories according to the file type, adjust speed according to network conditions, create pretty graphs, schedule everything, integrate with Chrome or Firefox, or batch-rename downloads?

That's not a problem either. Read our full Deluge review. It's attracted some criticism over the years, however: it's ad-supported and many users argue that the most recent versions are a little too heavy on the advertising and bundled software front. Make sure you read each step of the installer carefully and uncheck any software you don't want to install.

That aside, uTorrent is useful, effective and doesn't gobble up too much of your system's resources: the entire app mainly runs in your web browser. Although it isn't the official BitTorrent app, it's been maintained by BitTorrent for the last decade. It's worth noting that uTorrent has a record of security problems, the most recent of which had the potential to let hackers control key functions of the client and spy on users' downloads.

There are a lot of phishing scams going around with RARBG-looking sites, so make sure you learn about secure browsing. Website: X website. Some people use it to browse for game torrents as well, but from our research, it does look like both RARBG and The Pirate Bay have more torrents in that category, especially for older titles.

A few years ago, X was a bad choice for any torrenting, since it was clunky to navigate and it posed a lot of security risks. Since then, it went through an entire site revamp , making it seamless to browse and safer.

For shows and movies, you also have improved browsing functionalities, like searching by award nomination. Mirrors: x. Website: Torrentz2 website. While this is not that big of a torrent site — only amassing million users a month, and unable to sport much of a library for general torrents — Torrentz2 is very good for finding music. Not to mention — any type of browsing options, like searching by album, artist or song would be greatly appreciated.

Second, ad intrusion is minimal and the interface is beautiful. Lastly, classics are readily available on the platform. If you want high-definition episodes of your favourite shows, EZTV is the place to go. We searched for older titles like Two and a Half Men, and it had a decent library of options.

We even tried going for more obscure titles, like the British show Midsomer Murders. EZTV has a large variety of torrents for the new releases in that show, and packages of older episodes. We tried browsing for older titles, and it has a good library, both for PC and consoles.

You can subscribe to different categories or titles and get a feed of new torrents for them. Update: Despite recent claims to the contrary, Zooqle still seems to be up and running. For instance, we received a remark from one of our French readers that Zooqle has been shut down, so we checked with a VPN if it was blocked in France. In all three instances, we were successful. Therefore, we have to conclude that, as of now, Zooqle is accessible to, at least, a great portion of internet users.

Needless to say, we will check this regularly and keep you updated! LimeTorrents is very good for new releases. Mirrors: limetorrents. Not a torrent site per se, Torrends. Mirrors: None. This website used to be called torrents. Website: Torrentdownloads website. Attention: This website attempts to open an additional browser tab with advertisements. Not harmful, but annoying. Asian titles specifically seem to take a big part of their servers.

Mirrors: torrentdownloads. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly for many, private torrenting sites generally have significantly higher streaming speeds than public ones, because members have seeding quotas they need to comply with. Last but not least, Bibliotik is the largest private torrenting site for downloading ebooks.

We recommend uTorrent , but Bittorrent will work just as fine. Once you installed a torrent client, download the torrent from one of the best torrent sites in the list above, and open it using the client. If you already installed the client, the torrent file will automatically open in this screen:. First, always download torrents and browse torrent sites using a VPN. Read our roundup of the best VPNs and use one of those before doing any torrenting.

Avoid big buttons and only click on the URL that will actually download your desired torrent file. You risk downloading malware, viruses , and even losing your information to phishing campaigns, which are very common for torrent sites. Again, check our best VPN section for the best options out there, safety tips, and news.