As one of the most popular BitTorrent clients around, uTorrent helps you share and download large files quickly and efficiently. ExpressVPN works with uTorrent to make your traffic private and secure.
The nature of P2P file sharing means that other uTorrent users can see the IP address you’re using to share files. If that IP address is your true IP address, your metadata and location will be exposed to strangers who could track and monitor everything you download.
A VPN hides your true IP address and replaces it with the IP address of a secure VPN server in another location. This IP address is shared by many other users, so your activity can never be traced back to you individually.
ExpressVPN also keeps no connection logs and no activity logs that could be used to identify you and has been rated as the best VPN for torrenting by Comparitech. Hiding your IP address with a private VPN lets you use uTorrent safely and anonymously.
Many uTorrent users configure IP binding to limit their downloading to a single IP address—for instance, that of a secure VPN server. If the VPN service suddenly disconnects, the download will stop and your privacy will remain intact. ExpressVPN’s Network Lock, however, makes this feature unnecessary.
Network Lock acts like a kill switch for your internet connection. If the connection to the secure VPN server unexpectedly drops for any reason, ExpressVPN will automatically stop any traffic from leaving your device, preventing any leaks that could endanger your privacy.
To see whether your privacy is exposed before you start downloading with uTorrent, visit ExpressVPN’s online privacy and security checker. Here’s what your IP address would look like to other users if you were using uTorrent without a VPN:
And here’s what your IP address would look like to other torrenters if you were protected by VPN:
A proxy server is any intermediary between your computer and the internet. By routing your traffic through a proxy server, other computers will see that server’s IP address instead of yours.
Because it hides your IP address, a VPN also acts like a proxy for uTorrent. But ExpressVPN offers many other benefits that a “free” torrent proxy service may not.
ExpressVPN does the following:
Hides your IP address
Strong encryption
Network Lock / kill switch
160 server locations
No activity logs, no connection logs
Live chat support
Commitment to privacy
Proxy services only offer the following:
While using a free proxy service for uTorrent might seem like a convenient solution, it could actually make you less anonymous. Without revenue from users, free proxies must resort to other means of monetizing your traffic. This could include selling your data to advertisers or injecting ads into your web browser.
Learn more about the dangers of free proxy services.
So be careful when you see sites advertising “free” torrent proxy services. Using a VPN is a much safer way of browsing, sharing, and downloading with uTorrent.
There’s no need to configure your uTorrent settings to work with a VPN. Just open the ExpressVPN app and connect before opening uTorrent.
Whether you’re using uTorrent on Windows, Mac, Linux, or Android, ExpressVPN has native apps to help you torrent privately and securely.
You can also install a VPN on your wireless router to get all the benefits of VPN on every device in your home.
Also known as µTorrent, uTorrent is a very lightweight BitTorrent client. One of the more popular BitTorrent clients available today, uTorrent helps more than 150 million users share and download files from anywhere in the world.
Because it uses the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol, uTorrent users download files in pieces from a swarm of other users (peers), instead of in a single stream from one source. This makes uTorrent an efficient way to transfer large files.
BitTorrent is the name of the protocol used by the application called uTorrent, but it is also the name of a similar application, also owned by BitTorrent, Inc. BitTorrent and uTorrent both allow users to share and download files, and there is little difference for the casual user.
ExpressVPN keeps no connection logs and no activity logs that could be used to identify you, so it’s safe to use for torrenting with uTorrent or any other BitTorrent client. Your web browsing history, search history, and download history are kept private from your ISP and any other snoopers thanks to industry-standard 256-bit AES encryption.
ExpressVPN allows torrenting through uTorrent, BitTorrent, Transmission, qBittorrent, Deluge, or any other P2P torrenting client.*
Although torrenting is often associated with illegal activity, there are many legitimate uses of uTorrent and the BitTorrent protocol in general:
Viewing content from the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making published works available on the internet, including old versions of webpages, live TV news videos, and full-length public domain films, music, and books. You can download many of the larger files in torrents, which helps keep the archive’s bandwidth costs low.
Downloading Linux distributions
Most popular Linux distros, including Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora, provide torrent files as an alternative download method.
Enjoying music and videos from independent artists
BitTorrent’s official website has a section called BitTorrent Now where you can find torrent files for hundreds of albums and videos from independent artists. Most offer a free sample and a full paid version.
Exploring academic datasets
Academic research often generates datasets with very large file sizes, which makes them ideal for torrenting. Academic Torrents is a good general source for browsing scientific torrents, including a section featuring data from NASA.
* ExpressVPN is a VPN service not intended to be used as a means of copyright circumvention. Please read the ExpressVPN Terms of Service and uTorrent Terms of Use for more details.
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