HOW TO DOWNLOAD TORRENTS IN GERMANY (SAFELY AND LEGALLY)

Bittorrent is still the most popular p2p/file-sharing technology in Europe, and many people download torrents in Germany. However, German torrent users have been facing increasing pressure, including: monitoring, and even legal threats, often for files they never even downloaded.

This article will teach you step-by-step, how to safely access torrent sites and download torrents anonymously in Germany. We’ll also discuss some misconceptions about torrent legality. 

LEGALITY OF TORRENTS IN GERMANY

Torrents and p2p file-sharing is completely legal in Germany. If surprises you, let me explain:

Bittorrent is simply a filesharing technology. There is nothing inherently bad or illegal about it, and no European country bans the use of Bittorrent. It is illegal, however, to share copyrighted files via bittorrent.

In other words, if you stick to legal torrent sources, you’ll be fine. The problems arise when German citizens download copyrighted files such major theatrical movie releases, TV shows, and pornography. 

Abmahnung in Germany affecting file-sharers

In recent years, there has been a major rise in the sending of ‘Abmahnung’ notices by German law firms. These ‘cease and desist’ letter often target bittorrent users, and usually include a demand for a payment of several hundred Euros (up to 1000 Euros or more).

But the Abmahnung culture has some major problems:

  • Some law firms are sending copyright notices without actually having rights to the infringed work: In other words, some unethical firms are sending mass Abmahnung letters demanding settlements from filesharers, without the permission of the actual copyright holder!
  • Many people who receive an Abmahnung notice (and pay), didn’t actually download the file — These letters are often very threatening, and recipients face a choice of ‘pay a few hundred Euro now or be sued for thousands’. As a result, many people have paid these settlement demands, even if they never downloaded the file.

While the torrent trolling practice has faced increasing pressure and roadblocks in countries like the USA, the German legal system seems to be tolerating, if not encouraging it.

As a result, there is very little accountability for the law firms issuing these notices, and since almost no cases actually go to trial, there is almost no downside to issuing fraudulent notices as well. In other words, there is a strong incentive for unethical firms to target IP addresses and users who have never downloaded the file in question, because many will choose to pay the settlement anyway. 

This lopsided system is stacked against individuals who often can’t even afford to defend their innocence. 

Follow these 3 steps to help protect yourself from these predatory Abmahnung letters:

  1. Only download legal torrents. High profile, copyrighted torrents are the #1 source of Abmahnung demands
  2. Protect your privacy online. Never use your real IP address while torrenting, and keep your web history private.
  3. Don’t pay wrongful settlement demands. Fight back, and take steps to protect yourself in the future

INTRODUCTION TO ANONYMOUS TORRENT DOWNLOADS

The rest of this guide will focus on the simple, powerful technique you can use to maximize your privacy while downloading torrents. You will learn to hide your ip address, protect your web history, and keep your internet provider from monitoring your internet activity.

Privacy is a right, but also comes with a responsibility to use your anonymity in a legal and ethical manner. We do not condone any illegal use of this information.

With that said, here’s what you’ll learn:

  1. How bittorrent users are tracked and targeted in Germany
  2. Why a VPN and/or Proxy is the most important tool for anonymous torrent downloads
  3. How to use a VPN with your favorite torrent software

HOW TORRENT DOWNLOADS ARE TRACKED IN GERMANY

There are two ways that torrent downloads are monitored and/or blocked in Germany:

  1. Your public IP address is visible to all torrent peers and can be harvested/logged by automated software
  2. If you don’t use encryption, your ISP can monitor your web history (torrent sites) and torrent downloads

Public IP address

Because of the way the Bittorrent protocol is designed, all peers sharing a file must know the IP address (physical network location) of every other peer sharing that file. If you don’t take any steps to hide your true IP address while torrenting, any peer can monitor your torrent history.

Your German IP address is visible to torrent peers
The ‘Peers’ tab in Vuze shows all peer IP addresses sharing the file

And you don’t even have to share the same file to monitor IP addresses in the swarm. IP addresses can be  logged remotelywithout ever sharing the file if you use DHT for peer discovery. 

The best defense against torrent IP monitoring?
Change your torrent IP address, so it doesn’t match your true IP address. We’ll show you how in the next section of this guide.

Monitoring by your Internet Provider (ISP)

Internet Service Providers in Germany have the ability to monitor subscriber’s traffic and online activity through the use of ‘Deep Packet Inspection’ because all your data flows through their network.

Furthermore, German ISP’s are now actually required to record information about their subscriber’s online activity, and keep those logs for a minimum of 10 weeks. German data records include: Web history, IP addresses assigned, data transferred, and could include files downloaded as well (like torrents).

And ISP’s frequently use a technique called ‘Bittorrent Throttling‘ to slow down (or completely block) torrent downloads on their service.

How to prevent torrent monitoring/blocking by German ISP’s?
By using a zero-log VPN service (like the one’s featured later in this article) you can make it impossible for your ISP to monitor your web history, since all your traffic will be encrypted when it flows through their servers. VPN encryption also makes it very difficult to block or throttle torrent traffic.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR TORRENTS COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS

The best tool for anonymous torrenting is a non-logging VPN. It will change your public IP address (which appears in torrent swarms) and encrypt 100% of your web traffic so your ISP cannot see what you’re downloading.

Several of our recommended VPNs also include free Socks5 proxy service, which can be used to change your torrent IP address a 2nd time, by configuring your favorite torrent client to use the proxy. This will run inside the existing VPN tunnel. 

VPNs we proudly recommend:
  1. NordVPN | Review — Affordable, fast, and very p2p-friendly. It even works with Netflix, Hulu and other geo-restricted streaming services. 30-day 100% refund policy.
  2. Private Internet Access | review — The original ‘non-logging’ VPN. Their v3.0 software is incredibly good. Torrent traffic is allowed on all servers and 2-year plans cost less then 3€ per month.

Once you’ve got yourself a torrent-friendly VPN service (like the ones listed above), all you have to do is follow the steps below to keep your torrent history private and anonymous:

Step #1 – Connect to a torrent-friendly server location

Some countries are more friendly towards file-sharers than others. Your VPN will allow you choose from some or all of these locations with a single click.

​We recommend connecting to a server located in one of these countries:

  • Switzerland
  • Netherlands
  • Canada
  • Romania
  • Sweden

Step #2 – Enable Kill-switch and DNS Leak Protection

All 3 of the VPNs we recommend in this article include 2 additional security features in their VPN software:

  • A Kill-Switch – If you enable the software kill-switch, it will instantly kill your internet connection if the VPN accidentally disconnects, making sure that your real IP address never leaks to torrent peers. Learn more about Kill-Switches.
  • DNS Leak Protection – Most internet providers try to intercept all DNS lookups (performed every time you type a domain name into your web browser) from their subscribers. Some VPNs can leak DNS requests, allowing an ISP to snoop on your web history. You can enable DNS leak protection in your VPN software to make sure this never happens. 

Step #3 – Verify your IP address is anonymous

It’s easy to check that your web browser has changed its IP address by using a free tool like iplocation.net, but what about the IP address of your torrent client (uTorrent, Vuze, Bittorrent, etc)?

We wrote an entire guide showing you step-by-step how to check your torrent IP address using an IP tracking torrent

This step is optional, but it’s a good idea to do it, just to make sure everything is working properly. 

Step #4 – Download torrents as normal

With the VPN active and connected to a torrent-friendly server location, you are now ready to download torrents anonymously.

All torrents will be encrypted, and your peers will only see the IP address of the VPN server, not your real IP address. And if you took our advice and chose a non-logging VPN, it will be completely impossible to trace your real IP from your virtual (VPN) IP address.

You will also find that any torrent sites that we’re blocked are now easily accessible. Because the VPN uses extremely strong encryption technology, it is now impossible for your internet provider to block torrent sites or throttle your torrent downloads

BEST VPN FOR GERMANY (TO DOWNLOAD TORRENTS)

At their core, all high-quality no-log VPNs do the same thing, so as long as they meet these criteria you should be quite happy.

  • A true ‘zero-log’ policy.
  • Torrent-friendly
  • Socks5 proxy included (an optional bonus feature)
  • 256-bit encryption (same strength as US military encryption)
  • Unlimited bandwidth and speeds

But for Germans, we recommend one VPN provider highest — IPVanish.

IPVanish (starts at $6.49/month)

Why we love IPVanish:

  • No logs. Period.
  • The fastest VPN we’ve tested
  • up to 256-bit Encryption (adjustable)
  • SOCKS5 proxy included
  • 7-day, 100% refund policy
  • 10 simultaneous VPN connections per account
  • Best Price: $6.49/month

IPVanish is the Best best VPN for Germany Torrents

IPVanish is one of our most-recommended VPNs. While a bit more expensive than competitor Private Internet Access, IPVanish is the fastest VPN we’ve tested. As of this year, they also have a free Socks5 proxy included, and more than 3 times as many countries with servers as PIA.

Read: our full IPVanish Review

Their software is excellent, and available on all major platforms, including: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android. You can even setup IPVanish on your high-end wireless router (if it has compatible firmware). 

IPVanish also has more German server locations than its competitors. There is an IPVanish server in Dresden as well as 26 unique servers in Frankfurt, Germany. You can connect to a German server if you want local google results, access to local German websites, or just faster connection speeds. 

Choose IPVanish if you want the fastest speeds possible and are willing to spend a little extra. Check latest deals »

SUMMARY: TORRENTING IN GERMANY

If you follow the steps in this guide, you have everything you need to download torrents safely in Germany. Please make sure to use this information ethically and responsibly. With great anonymity comes great responsibility.

You will be able to freely access any torrent site, without fear of being monitored by your ISP or any 3rd-party organization. Abmahnung are predatory notices, and are being sent with little oversight or verification. Using a VPN makes it much less likely that you will be unfairly or incorrectly targeted by one of these notices. 

Avatar photo

David started torrenting before it was cool. He enjoys hiking, strategy games and eats watermelon year round. He still rocks his Napster t-shirt once a month.

4 thoughts on “HOW TO DOWNLOAD TORRENTS IN GERMANY (SAFELY AND LEGALLY)”

  1. Hello. Thanks so much for the very informative article. I definitely learnt a lot from reading it. I have a few questions though. Hopefully you can find time to reply to my comment.

    I recently moved to Germany and I do have worries that I may be fined for torrenting. I just got a NordVPN account and I have bound it to the Netherlands server. I am also using qbittorrent and I have already connected my VPN to qbittorrent. I am still a bit worried that I might have missed a step. I mean, my VPN is turned on, connected to Netherlands and the VPN is also connected to the qbittorrent app. In addition, I also turned on the kill switch for the wifi in case it isn’t connected to the VPN. Lastly, I checked to see if the IP address really is different using the official Nordvpn tutorial and it really does show that my IP address is from the netherlands. I SHOULD be safe right? I am sorry for any stupid questions asked. I just really wanna be sure and be safe.

    Reply
    • It’s not a stupid question and it’s always good to be cautious. Good news, it really is that simple. If you’re seeing a different IP address on ‘check my ip’ websites, you should be good to go. Since you’re using NordVPN, you can also just visit their website and if the VPN is active and working correctly it will say so in the bar at the top of the web page.

      Reply
    • The .torrent file is just a piece of metadata that identifies the pieces and structure of the associated file. There is nothing illegal about it.

      Reply

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