Maybe it’s luck but I’ve shamelessly torrented in the UK my whole life, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the past fifteen years, I’ve downloaded a petabyte on pirated content.
I’ve never used a VPN and the one time I got a letter from my ISP, I suspect it was a scam anyway. I have used at least 4 ISPs in this period and two mobile networks, I’ve even used public and work WiFis with not issue.
I’m not sure if this a UK thing or if I’m just wildly lucky.
In the Netherlands they pay a small fee (3.5€ on a new phone) on every electronics “with which you can download”, which allows them to pirate without much worrying.
To be fair, I’m also stateside and, while I knew enough to know not to do it with abandon, I’ve torrented without a VPN at least a handful of times and never got anything from my ISPs in two decades.
Brazil and most Latin American countries are also safe pirate havens, unless you set up a for-profit piracy site, then you’re painting a huge target on your head.
Technically you don’t need a vpn if you live in certain countries where the government doesn’t give a shit that you torrent.
Only thing Eastern Europe does better than the west
Maybe it’s luck but I’ve shamelessly torrented in the UK my whole life, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the past fifteen years, I’ve downloaded a petabyte on pirated content.
I’ve never used a VPN and the one time I got a letter from my ISP, I suspect it was a scam anyway. I have used at least 4 ISPs in this period and two mobile networks, I’ve even used public and work WiFis with not issue.
I’m not sure if this a UK thing or if I’m just wildly lucky.
Have the same story here in Belgium.
Never gotten a letter.
In the Netherlands they pay a small fee (3.5€ on a new phone) on every electronics “with which you can download”, which allows them to pirate without much worrying.
We have such a fee as well in Sweden, but piracy is still illegal and prosecuted.
I’m stateside, and I torrented something once without a VPN and got an email complaint from my ISP not long after.
To be fair, I’m also stateside and, while I knew enough to know not to do it with abandon, I’ve torrented without a VPN at least a handful of times and never got anything from my ISPs in two decades.
I’m doing fine in Ireland anyway.
Brazil and most Latin American countries are also safe pirate havens, unless you set up a for-profit piracy site, then you’re painting a huge target on your head.
You can also just direct download games without a VPN.
100% safe?
No, but uh, ISPs have so heavily switched over to monitoring torrents, they kind of forgot the other option exists.
(I’ll update this with a -whoops I got fucked- if that happens, but I’ve been doing this for half a year now, no problems.)
Another option is I2P for either direct dls or torrents, no subscription fee, but it is quite slow.