Something I was curious about but couldn’t find a definitive answer.
Whhhhhhaaatt? That’s like asking if condomless sex with a prostitute is safe as long as she’s on birth control. I know it feels good but… WRAP IT UP, SON!!!
Yes, bind your torrent to the client AND use your kill switch. There’s not such thing as being too cautious especially not when it only takes you another 20 seconds to do it. I mean that metaphorically and literally.
Is it worth installing airbags if I have seat belts?
Yes.
My primary assurance that torrenting happens over the VPN would be to bind the adapter to the torrent client.
The backup would be the killswitch, mostly because I find killswitches to be flaky/unreliable and generally not live up to their name.
Yes. Multiple protective systems are better than less.
Always bind always always always. I’ve seen so many people complaining they get letters from their ISP and they had a Killswitch but didn’t have it binded. Just bind and wave boys bind and wave.
I bind my torrent client to only download and upload with my VPN interface
What do you all mean by “binding to the torrent client”?
Sorry for the dumb question.
Is there anyway to assure the binding stays consistent whenever you start up Proton? I use a Mac. I have to check every single time when I restart Proton - sometimes it’s utun6 somtimes utun10. Again is there a way to FIX this to a known? Thanks
It’s just more protection. More is better.
I think you’ve got your answer, OP.
Connecting your VPN to your torrent program makes things even safer. Binding makes sure that the torrent client won’t work unless the VPN is on, even if there is a constant kill switch. This can help keep information from getting out by accident if the VPN link drops. Even though it’s not exactly necessary if your kill switch works, it’s a good idea to do it just in case.
What do you mean by “worth”? It is literally one click in the settings, and it is the proper way to ensure that the client will connect ONLY through the VPN. It’s a no brainer.
This. There is always the risk that the kill switch doesn’t activate or isn’t fast enough for whatever reason. Still I think it’s worth mentioning that in the specific implementation Proton uses, in theory there is no gap between the VPN disconnecting and the kill switch activation because they are “replacing” (sorry I know that this isn’t the correct technical term but I don’t know what’s the correct term) the interface when the kill switch is enabled in the US which has the disadvantage that it blocks local requests but in theory prevents IP leaks when the connection breaks. Protons implementations is very good compared to the BS kill switch other VPNs like NordVPN which definitely leaks your IP for a few milliseconds before it kills the application (very bad implementation).
Still even with this better implementation, I would still advise to bind it.
Don’t be silly, bind that Willy!
I always wonder why there isn’t a single web browser in existence which allows binding your network interface manually?
Configure the torrent client so that it can only use the VPN’s network adapter. That way, if the VPN disconnects, the torrent client won’t be able to communicate with the internet. This prevents you from ever exposing your real IP address over torrent connections (which can be used by copyright owners to trace you).
In qBittorrent there is an option under Tools->Options->Advanced called “Network interface”. You pick the VPN network interfaced (e.g. tun0) so that qBittorrent will only try to access the Internet through that interface.
That would be the most convenient thing ever. They do handle proxies generally, so you could set up a local proxy which is bound to a VPN.
Personally I just put all 80/443 traffic over my VPN, and most other traffic I really don’t care to have over a VPN.