Is Surfshark Good for Torrenting in 2021?

Surfshark is a top VPN on the market. But how well does it do torrenting? We did our research and reached out to the representatives to find out how Surfshark handled torrenting.

Surfshark allows P2P traffic

Surfshark supports P2P traffic via all 3,200+ servers. This makes it simple to locate servers close to you and avoid overcrowding them.

P2P servers usually have a dynamic IP that changes each time you connect. Surfshark offers a variety of P2P servers that offer static IPs. This is an address that never changes.

Surfshark is good for torrenting

Surfshark makes torrenting easy, simple, and secure due to its many features.

P2P Support –Surfshark supports torrent downloading on 3,200+ servers.
Surfshark always delivers lightning fast speeds It is easy to locate a server close to us (they offer faster speeds) and can also use the WireGuard protocol, which is very fast.
No logs policy Surfshark does not monitor your browsing or downloads. Lawyers and copyright agencies can’t force Surfshark to give them data about torrent users (since there isn’t any).
Surfshark’s leak protection protects you against DNS and WebRTC errors (very useful if you use a browser-based torrent client). Surfshark cannot guarantee that it will protect against IPv6 leaks. You should disable IPv6 before using Surfshark.
Surfshark offers great security– Surfshark protects your data using AES256 encryption, the strongest cipher available. All their servers are powered by RAM. This means that any data stored on the server is automatically deleted.
The user-friendly apps Surfshark apps are available for all platforms, including Linux. They have an intuitive design and are very easy to use. Even if you have never used a VPN before, they will quickly become second nature.
Kill switch Surfshark’s kill button won’t allow you to use the Internet until your VPN server is connected. Although it’s a drastic measure, it can protect you from traffic leaks.
Whitelister is Surfshark’s split-tunneling function. It can be used to route torrent client traffic only through the VPN. This allows you to get faster speeds as there is less data to encrypt or decrypt.
Torrent client compatibility – We tested Surfshark using the most popular torrent clients, qBitorrent and BitTorrent, Vuze, Deluge, and it worked flawlessly.
Cleanweb is Surfshark’s ad-blocker. While it won’t block ads from uTorrent, it will stop connections to malicious sites and links (very useful when dealing with shady trackers and torrent sites).
Unlimited parallel connections Surfshark can be used to torrent on as many devices and as many computers as you wish.

Surfshark Speed Tests

We ran some tests to see how fast Surfshark torrenting is. We used qBittorrent, uTorrent, servers from Canada, Singapore and Japan, as well as the WireGuard protocol. Our tester is from Romania, for reference.

These are our original download speeds. 50 MB/s for uTorrent (377-395 Mb/s) and 30-34 Mbit/s for qBittorrent (285-285 Mbps). It took us around 10-15 minutes to download the 21.7GB and 33.92GB files.

Our qBittorrent speeds dropped to between 10-13 MiB/s (81 to 110 Mbps) and our uTorrent speeds to between 3-5 MB/s (25-22/42 Mbps). The ETA (Estimated Time Of Arrival) was increased to approximately 2-3 hours for uTorrent and 1-1 hour 30 minutes for qBittorrent.

These are the speeds for the other servers

Japan: 2-4 MiB/s with qBittorrent and 1-2MB/s with uTorrent
Singapore 4 MiB/s (qBittorrent), and 2 MB/s(uTorrent).

It’s not surprising that there was a slowdown. Servers were located far away from the location of our testers. It took data longer to travel from their device to the VPN servers. WireGuard’s lightweight meant that the encryption made data packets more heavy, which in turn took longer to arrive.

The download speeds were satisfactory. To speed up the downloads, we also used a VPN server located near the tester (Bulgaria). Speed improvements were noticeable at 18-19 Mbit/s (qBittorrent), and 7-9 MB/s for uTorrent. A 33.92 GB file took us around 40-45 minutes on qBittorrent and about 1 hour 40-50 on uTorrent.

While connecting to the Bulgarian server, we also used OpenVPN. We experienced slower speeds than expected: 8-12 MiB/s for qBittorrent and 1-2 MB/s for uTorrent.

IMPORTANT If the torrent has very few seeders your download speeds may be very slow. Surfshark is not responsible for this. This is because you are downloading torrents from only a handful of people. Your download will stall if you don’t have seeders.

What do people think about torrenting with Surfshark.

To find out what torrent users thought of Surfshark, we checked several Reddit threads. Reddit users also had their opinions on Surfshark’s torrenting experience. This is the best place to get unbiased opinions. We tried to find reviews on torrent client forums but couldn’t find any worthwhile.

It seems that people are satisfied with the VPN. They experience no major slowdowns and Redditors reported that they have never received angry letters from copyright agencies, trolls, or trade associations.

Surfshark has 2 drawbacks for torrenting

Surfshark can be a great VPN for torrenting, but there are two problems.

1. Seeding is not allowed

Surfshark does not allow seeding. This includes P2P servers. We also had very slow upload speeds when torrenting. There were exceptions to this rule on uTorrent but upload speeds were slow (3-4 kB/s).

2. Port forwarding is not available

Surfshark does not allow port forwarding as it regards it as a security risk. They are concerned that hackers could exploit random ports by opening up ports.

Port forwarding is a popular option for torrent users because it allows them to connect with more peers. This theoretically means that you will get faster speeds. However, this is not a guarantee.

Does Surfshark Still Make a Good VPN for Torrenting?

Yes. Surfshark works well for those who only occasionally download movies, TV shows, or games. If you have to keep a high seed rate or download torrents frequently, Surfshark is not recommended. You can use Seedbox.io instead.

Surfshark: How to Use It for Torrenting

Surfshark is your subscription
Surfshark’s App can be downloaded and installed.
Start the app and search for “P2P” in the Locations section.
Connect to the nearest server.
Start your torrent client to start downloading torrents.

FAQ

These are the most frequently asked questions about Surfshark or torrenting.

How can you improve download speeds?

Yes, you can – here are some things to try:

Connect with a server close to you. Use the French P2P servers to connect to servers in the US and Canada.
Use WireGuard and IKEv2. Both protocols can be used quickly and are light. OpenVPN is also a good alternative to UDP, but it’s not as fast as these two.
Use Whitelister. Only route traffic from your torrent client. Surfshark will slow down download speeds if it routes data from Chrome and Steam.

Does Surfshark Limit Your Data?

Surfshark does not limit data usage between downloads.

Can Surfshark Bind Torrent Clients?

Yes, you can. You don’t have to. Surfshark’s kill switch is very powerful and protects you against traffic leaks.

You can do it by searching “[torrent name] + binding IP”.

Surfshark safe for torrenting?

It is one of the most secure torrenting VPNs available. Here are the reasons:

Surfshark employs strong encryption and does not keep logs.
Surfshark offers a kill switch to protect you from traffic leaks.
Cleanweb can be used to block connections to torrenting sites that are malicious.
Surfshark provides DNS and WebRTC leak protection.
All Surfshark servers are powered by RAM memory. After every restart, all data is deleted.

Surfshark’s IPv6 leak protection is not great. You can fix this by disabling IPv6 manually on your device.

What happens if you Torrent on Surfshark’s Non-P2P servers?

Surfshark support representatives stated that Surfshark routes traffic to a P2P server. This means that your download speeds may slow down. Sometimes, your downloads might stop entirely. Surfshark cannot just disconnect you and connect to a P2P server. This would be a security breach that could expose your IP.

This was done by torrenting over the Australian and New Zealand servers. We got either zero speed or very slow speeds (kB/s, not MiB/s and MB/s). Surfshark’s servers for P2P are better.

Surfshark’s Best Server to Torrent?

The closest P2P server is the best. This will allow you to get faster speeds as data packets travel more quickly between you and your VPN server.

Surfshark support representatives were asked if they had a recommendation for a particular P2P server. They said that they just recommend the closest one.

More than 3200+ global servers located in 60+ countries
CleanWeb Ad-Blocking feature
OpenVPN offers strong encryption and security
Multi-hop VPN, Whitelister and Kill Switch
No-logs policy
Uses Netflix for streaming
Amazing speeds
30-day money-back guarantee.