I have been using the free tier of hide.me VPN for torrenting with qbittorrent (with the network interface bound to qbittorrent) for a while and it has worked well, but found that it suddenly stopped working for torrenting a few days ago. Using the ipleak.net torrent address detection works, displaying the VPN IP address, but downloading any torrents does not work. I tried the same torrent with another VPN (Atlas VPN, with only has 5 gb free per month) and it worked. Has anyone else encountered or is experiencing this issue with hide.me VPN? I found it to be my go to VPN for torrenting before this. Thanks.
I had the same issue and emailed support. They responded almost immediately with the following message:
"Due to increase in abuse attempts, the free hide.me VPN service now strictly requires the use of hide.me VPN DNS servers, which are pushed upon successful connection. Unfortunately, services which do not use DNS like, for example, torrents, different instant messengers, etc. might have issues because of that.
This change was required as we want to keep the free service alive and available for the purpose it was intended for. At the moment, this is a hard requirement, which, on the other hand, our premium service does not have."
Quite unfortunate. Was nice while it lasted though.
You shouldn’t use free VPNs that aren’t protonVPN free tier if you care remotely about privacy.
My recommendations:
For torrenting? AirVPN / Proton VPN - these both support port forwarding, have affordable longer-time plans and good ethics and track record.
For general use? Mullvad - they have extremely affordable pricing, 5 EUR per month, excellent ethics and track record, and loads of servers in many countries. Only issue is they removed port forwarding functionality a little while ago and so it is no longer recommended for torrenting.
I personally jumped ship to AirVPN from mullvad (for torrenting and unblocking my school Wi-Fi) when mullvad removed port forwarding and couldn’t be happier. AirVPN support VPN-over-SSL which bypasses my school’s DPI firewall. Only issue is nearly all their IPs are flagged by Google so captchas happen often.
Ps: Free VPNs (other than protonVPN free tier) are a no go. If you aren’t paying with money, what are you paying with?
I can also confirm, this, had to switch to Windscribe, you can get 10 GB per month there as well id you verify your email address, so far it’s working with utorrent.
I’ve been using the free plan of Hide.me on both Ubuntu and Windows 10 all these years without issues. Just about a week ago, none of the torrent downloads worked. Looks like hide.me has blocked torrent traffic.
It loks that not only torrens are not working with Hide.me from last week.
I actualy have problem with use of TOR browser over Hide.me.
(Browser is unable to connect with TOR network and shows “No SSL object” and
“general SOCKS server failure” errors).
There’s a thread about this issue on their support forum but there they say that everything is working fine with TOR.
The workaround I use now is just downloading the torrent via the flud app on my android (using a free android vpn app) and then use feem to send to other devices if needed.
When hide.me kicked the legs out of the free service I got an incredible deal with Atlas for 3 years. Given I had been using, and probably abusing hide.me on occasion, I sent support a copy of the offer from atlas and gave them the opportunity to beat or match it. Nope. I got some crap about an upcoming sale, but I had not seen any of their sales beat the price I got from atlas and I wanted the VPN back NOW, so I signed on with atlas. I figured if it really sucked, I could request a refund in the first month.
I had also on occasion subbed to hide.me, and the atlas paid service was not as good at first, but atlas has had three client upgrades and between them, and just learning a bit more about atlas, as in some of the pops are just not super stable, so don’t use them, I am not unhappy with their service. I doubt when it comes time to re sub again I will even dick around asking if hide.me wants me back.
I wonder if messing up the free service got them any more business.
I see. Quite unfortunate as it was an excellent free service for torrenting with, thanks to there being no data cap. Thanks for sharing their support response to clarify any doubt as to what the issue was. By the way, do you know of any other good free vpn solutions for torrenting? Thanks.
The protonVPN free tier doesn’t allow torrenting. Also, if I’m not wrong, hide.me is a fairly well known and trustworthy vpn with a fairly decent average score on the vpn comparison chart on r/VPN, and has paid tiers as well.
Have already tried this several times. Even tried reinstalling the vpn client and older version of qbittorrent. No difference. A few weeks ago, I ran into this issue previously, and managed to fix it after reinstalling the beta version of the hide.me VPN client. Neither the regular version nor the beta version work now, tried reinstalling both.
I see. Thanks for confirming that it isn’t an issue on my end. Sad to see hide.me not work for torrenting anymore, as their unlimited free tier was very convenient. Will try out Windscribe.
Yes, same here, have been using it on Windows 11 for about a year or so. Found that it just stopped working about a week ago when I tried to download a torrent. Seems like they have decided to block torrent traffic.
A bit late but which vpn do u use?
I used to use Atlas when they had a fully free service when they were still quite new. Then they introduced to 10GB per month free limit, and it got a bit annoying to use. But yes, otherwise, Atlas is a good service.
Atlas VPN is no longer in service:
"Atlas VPN service discontinued
Our VPN service is no longer available
Thank you for your interest in Atlas VPN. We regret to inform you that as of April 2024, our VPN service has been permanently discontinued and is no longer available. We thank our customers for your support over the years.“Atlas VPN service discontinued Our VPN service is no longer available”
Been using Windscribe like the other commenter said. I don’t think its free after the initial 10gb. Works for me since I rarely torrent anything big.
Doesnt allows shit, my internet is not working while connected to proton VPN free
ProtonVPN free does indeed not support torrents. Apologies if that is what you were looking for.
As regards to hide.me, there is probably a reason it isn’t recommended in the pinned post. As I haven’t used it or tried it I do not know for sure but I’d advise not using a free vpn to torrent regardless. Since you aren’t paying, there is zero incentive to keep data safe or protect privacy in any way. I’d advise trying something like gDebrid in the mean time before getting a decent VPN, it converts magnet links info DDLs
“VPN - Super Unlimited Proxy” by VPN Super Inc. Android app.