A VPN hides your real IP addressĪlthough PeerBlock blocks unwanted IP addresses, it does not hide your own IP address to keep it safe. It can also not block ISPs to prevent them from monitoring traffic. PeerBlock does however not offer any encryption, meaning your torrent traffic is not secure against surveillance. VPNs hide internet trafficĪ VPN encrypts online traffic meaning it can’t be monitored to see what is being done on the Internet – not by any torrent monitoring agency, ISP, or government. Peerblock is clearly not an alternative for a VPN. This is more than 25% of all available IPv4 addresses globally.Īs a vast number of these peers will actually not be undesirable or malicious, users are left with a relatively small number of peers to choose from, reducing download speeds substantially. If the 3 most popular blocklists available for Peerguard are used, more than 1.1 billion IP addresses would be blocked. This would leave you with no peers to connect to. The reality is however that blocking every potentially malicious peer means you’ll have to block all IP addresses available, as you can never be certain who is using which IP, especially which IP addresses are used to monitor torrent activity. Some ranges belong to the government, some to research institutions, etc. Peerblock uses blocklists that contain different types of IP ranges. It is not possible to block all undesirable IP addresses They can see which websites are being visited and which protocols are being used, including BitTorrent.
Peerblock does not encrypt data, which means your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will have full access to your data stream and will be able to monitor what you’re doing. There are a number of shortcomings when using Peerblock. Using Peerblock is a good idea, but it is not enough.
That is why you need to learn how to torrent safely. The thought behind this is that if you’re able to identify specific IP addresses that are undesirable, such as those being used by monitoring agencies, governments, or malicious users, who may sell the data to third parties, these connections can be blocked, supposedly making torrents downloading safer.ĭownloading torrents may be dangerous: your activity may be tracked, your computer may get infected with malware, spyware, ransomware.
The software enables users to select blocklists provided by 3rd party.
Peerblock is software that is available for free and BitTorrent and P2P users often use it to make downloads anonymous by preventing peer connections from specific IP addresses.
Downloading via torrent websites has sparked a lot of controversy in previous years. Download ResponsiblyĮven if you use all these precautions, there is still a chance you may have trouble.
Most of the cracked files executable, so if you ever download files with that extension, make sure to scan it with antivirus software. Since they execute an action when you run them, they are a common way to transmit viruses and other malicious data. SCR, and others are most prone to getting infected. Try to Avoid Executable FilesĮxecutable files such as. Torrents without comments are also a risk. If some users are mentioning harmful data, you should stay away. If a torrent file has comments, and it doesn’t mention anything negative or harmful, it usually means everything is fine. Most torrent websites have an implemented comment feature so users can leave feedback. There are also private torrent trackers which are known to be secure, but you usually need an invitation from a member to register a new account. Websites like 1337x or ThePirateBay have a huge number of seeders and leechers and are therefore much safer to use. The harmful torrents are reported and quickly removed. Even if they can’t check all the files, there are many users who check them beforehand.
Some torrent sites are extremely popular and used by many. If you are sure they are not harmful, you can disable your antivirus until you open them, but that is always a risk. This means you may have trouble opening certain files. On the downside, sometimes antivirus recognizes cracked files, keygens, and other software as malicious, even when they are not.
If it does, it will automatically remove it. So, once you download a torrent and launch it, the antivirus can notice harmful data.
This software automatically scans every file before you open it. That’s why it is important to have antivirus protection.