The Best Free VPN for Torrenting in France

The widespread use of torrents to obtain copyrighted material has led to strict monitoring and regulation of torrent websites worldwide. To maintain online anonymity, you can use a VPN for downloading torrents.

You should always opt for a VPN to mask your IP address when torrenting but its not necessary to spend money on one.

While you may look into free options for your P2P activities, let us inform you that not every free VPN is safe. So, finding the best free VPN for torrenting in France that supports P2P can be difficult as most services have speed, bandwidth, and server restrictions. Moreover, some might also leak your information and original IP address.

This is why we put 45+ VPNs through our torrenting benchmarking test, and rounded up 6 top free VPNs for torrenting. Despite being on our list, these, too, come with limitations like a small data cap and few servers. To avoid all these limitations, we recommend opting for our best option –ExpressVPN.

Detailed Analysis of 6 Best Free VPN for Torrenting
in France – [2023]

Following is a list of the top VPNs that enable the secure downloading of torrents. Go through our detailed analysis to pick the best free VPN for torrenting. We were going to add Hotspot Shield to the list, but we’re still testing it for now:

1. ExpressVPN – Best Torrenting VPN with a 30-Day Free Trial in France

ExpressVPN is the Best Torrenting VPN with a 30-Day Free Trial in France, thanks to its P2P-optimized servers that make downloading torrents easier with ExpressVPN in France. It is not completely free, but there is a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee, using which you can enjoy downloading torrents for free for an entire month!

Unlike free VPNs, ExpressVPN offers 3000+ P2P-friendly servers across 94 countries. All these servers work with uTorrent, BitTorrent, Vuze, and other clients. With so many servers, you will never experience any issues downloading torrents from anywhere.

Speaking of which, its speeds are consistent and fast, which is best for downloading large torrent files. In our ExpressVPN speed test in France on multiple nearby and long-distance servers, the average speed drop was only 13%.

On its US – New York server, the VPN offered a downloading speed of 87.78 Mbps and an uploading speed of 42.22 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection, using which we could download a 2 GB file on Bittorrent in about 5 minutes.

The speeds remained consistent throughout downloading of torrent files in France

We can call ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol highly responsible for its speed and performance. Out of its security protocols, including OpenVPN, IKEv2, and L2TP/IPSec, Lightway is the most ideal choice for torrenting due to its robust security and speeds.

As for security, this best torrenting VPN in France is equipped with top security features like 256-bit AES encryption, kill switch, split tunneling, and much more. You also get a DNS/IP leak protection feature that makes sure your real IP address never gets exposed while torrenting anonymously. We tested this feature while being connected to its US server, and it did not leak our IP at all:

ExpressVPN successfully concealed our IP and DNS requests while using the internet in France

All the features above make ExpressVPN great for torrenting in France. Even though you don’t get this VPN for torrenting free, you can try it out risk-free for 30 days using its 30-day refund policy. There’s also a 7-day free trial of ExpressVPN in France entitled to only iOS and mobile users.

Read more about this VPN service in our ExpressVPN review in France.

2. Windscribe – Best Free VPN for Torrenting in France

Windscribe is best free VPN for Torrenting in France. Along with support for various torrent clients, it offers reliable speeds, P2P-friendly servers, and robust security to users.

To start, Windscribe offers servers in 10 countries, present in the UK, Hong Kong, the US, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, and Switzerland.

While most of the locations offered by Windscribe are P2P-friendly, we found them overcrowded with internet users during peak hours. This caused the servers to get overloaded, and the download speeds were heavily affected.

As for bandwidth, Windscribe offers a 10 GB data per month free subscription, but you will have to provide an email address for that. Once you’ve signed up, you can download torrent files until you reach the data limit.

While testing Windscribe for speeds in France, we found them to be fast, but they still couldn’t match the speeds of ExpressVPN. When we tested about six server locations of this VPN, we faced a speed of about 35%.

On our US server, we got a downloading speed of 65.21 Mbps and an uploading speed of 34.75 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection. Using these speeds, we could download a 2.5 GB file on qBittorrent within 7 minutes.

Windscribe offers faster speeds than most free VPNs for torrenting in France

Windscribe also takes care of your online privacy. It offers AES-256-bit military-grade encryption for protecting your data with a built-in ad blocker. Although it is headquartered in Canada (part of the Five Eyes Alliance in France), it offers a zero-log policy.

Moreover, it comes with DNS leak protection for hiding your real identity and keeping your online privacy intact. For testing, we connected to its US server, and the VPN passed our test without any issues.

You can see that our IP address remained hidden while torrenting with this VPN in France

In short, Windscribe torrenting in France is a good combination if you’re fine with a few limitations. Even Reddit recommends this best free VPN for torrenting. In case of any technical issues, you can take help from its chatbot Garry anytime you like.

You can learn more about this service in our Windscribe VPN review in France.

3. Hide.Me – Secure Free VPN for P2P Activities

Hide.Me is a secure free VPN for P2P activities. it allows you to tweak your VPN settings while offering standard features like a kill switch and military-grade encryption.

This VPN supports P2P activities on all its 5 server locations on the free account, making it the best free P2P VPN. These server locations include US East, US West, Canada, the Netherlands, and Singapore. Looking at the number of locations, it is safe to assume that you may face slow speed issues if you connect from outside North America.

The provider only allocates 10 GB of data a month, which is still pretty reasonable for torrenting. Using this bandwidth limit, you can torrent multiple small files.

Although we noticed that reconnecting to servers can take a little longer, there are no performance or bandwidth limitations. You will have to spend time looking for a new server when you rejoin if your internet connection is unstable.

As for speeds, we conducted a speed test of Hide.Me on all its server locations and got an average speed drop of over 40%. Specifically, on our US server, we got a downloading speed of 57.16 Mbps and an uploading speed of 48.91 Mbps on our 100 Mbps connection. Using these speeds, downloading a 1.5 GB file on Vuze took about 7 minutes.

These speeds were fast enough to download small torrent files within minutes in France

For encryption, it uses 256-bit AES encryption, and its headquarters are located in Malaysia, which is not a part of the Fourteen Eyes alliance. That means you can trust its strict no-logs policy, which ensures that the VPN does not log, store, or pass on any of your sensitive information or usage data.

Moreover, it offers 4 tunneling protocols on its free plan, including OpenVPN, IKEv2, SSTP, and SoftEtherVPN, along with a kill switch and split tunneling. You also get DNS/IP leak protection, which prevents any IP leakage. We tested this by connecting to the US server, and the VPN passed our test successfully:

You can see that the VPN did not leak our IP address while torrenting in France

Thanks to its security, you can call Hide.Me a good free VPN for torrenting. With this VPN, you also get 24/7 live chat support, so you can get help from a professional whenever you prefer.

Learn more about this VPN in our Hide.Me review in France.

4. TunnelBear – Free Torrent Friendly VPN

TunnelBear is free Torrent Friendly VPN for torrenting and is a great choice for beginners. It features an easy-to-use app with a cartoonish interface with a bear guiding you across the app.

It offers a wide range of P2P-friendly servers in 49 countries. However, it recommends using servers in the UK, Canada, Germany, Romania, Sweden, and the Netherlands for torrenting activities.

With this VPN, you only get 500 MB of free monthly data, which is too little for downloading torrent files. You can get an additional 1 GB of free data if you tweet about TunnelBear on Twitter. But, unfortunately, it is still not enough for downloading large files.

While testing TunnelBear’s speeds in France on about 10 of its servers, the average speed drop we received was about 55%, which is significant compared to the VPNs above.

On its US server, it gave us a downloading speed of 54.26 Mbps and an uploading speed of 31.40 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection. Using these speeds, we downloaded a 300 MB file on uTorrent in about 4 minutes. Thanks to its TCP Override feature, our connection was stable throughout torrenting.

Its US server offered the fastest speeds as compared to the other servers in France

If we talk about security, TunnelBear is a great free VPN. You also don’t have to worry about your online privacy and identity being compromised, as with TunnelBear, you get AES-256-bit military-grade encryption and an internet kill switch (called Vigilant Bear).

Tunnelbear robust servers make it compatible with many operating systems like Windows, Android, Linux, and iOS, etc but it is known to be the best free VPN for mac in France.

TunnelBear also offers a GhostBear feature that obfuscates your traffic. Furthermore, you get DNS/IPv6 leak protection to guarantee that your identity remains hidden while downloading torrents. We connected to its UK server to test this feature, and you can see the VPN did not leak our actual IP address and rather displayed its provided UK IP address in France:

You can see that the VPN passed our DNS leak test with flying colors in France

Let’s not forget that it’s one of the few free VPNs that have been independently audited multiple times, so users can verify that it doesn’t log any data. For support, you can email this top free VPN for torrenting, and one of its representatives will reach out to you.

For more information, read our TunnelBear review in France.

5. Speedify – Fastest Free VPN for Torrenting

Speedify is Fastest Free VPN for Torrenting, offering an innovative feature called Channel Bonding. This feature combines your Wi-Fi connection with cellular data to maximize your speeds for torrenting.

This VPN offers 50+ servers in 35+ countries located in the USA, Mexico, Canada, UAE, UK, and more. This means you can avoid server overload and get a variety of options for torrenting.

Moreover, you get 2 GB of data per month which is quite mediocre for downloading torrent files. However, you can download a bunch of small and large torrent files with this data limit.

As for speeds, we enabled this VPN’s Channel Bonding feature and faced an average speed drop of around 33% while testing its 12 servers. On its US server, we got a downloading speed of 67.49 Mbps and an uploading speed of 50.82 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection. With these speeds, we could download a 2 GB file on Vuze in about 6 minutes.

These speeds were fast due to Channel Bonding in France

A downside of Channel Bonding is that it might double your data usage, which is concerning, especially if you’re using your cellular data.

Speedify offers advanced protective features such as an Internet kill Switch and split tunneling. It keeps minimal logs of your timestamps and the server you connect to. But, it does not store IP addresses. For protocols, it offers multiple options, like TCP, UDP, and HTTPS.

With this VPN, you also get DNS/IPv6 leak protection, ensuring that your identity remains hidden and your privacy stays protected during torrent sessions. For testing, we connected to its Australian server, and you can see that the VPN did not leak our actual IP to anyone.

This ensures that you’re safe while torrenting with Speedify in France

If the fast speeds have enticed you, then it’s time you get this free online VPN for torrenting. For more information, check out this detailed Speedify review in France.

6. Avira Phantom – Decent Speeds and Security for Torrenting

Avira Phantom has decent speeds and security for Torrenting with overall decent security and speeds. Moreover, it’s pretty easy to configure since you don’t have to create an account for it.

By the looks of it, Avira Phantom offers multiple servers in 34 countries, even on its free version. These are present in Australia, Canada, Belgium, the US, the UK, and more. Using these servers, you can download torrents pretty easily.

As for the data cap, Avira Phantom offers only 500 MB of data each month, which is only enough to download 2-4 small torrent files.

When it came to speeds, well, they were average. We tested multiple servers of this VPN and faced an average speed drop of 51%. However, on its US server, we got a downloading speed of 49.65 Mbps and an uploading speed of 31.24 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection. With these speeds, we could download a 200 MB file on qBittorrent within 10 minutes.

These speeds were pretty average for torrenting activities in France

With this VPN, you get a robust no-logging policy, so your torrenting activities are not stored by the VPN. It even offers an Auto-Connect feature that keeps you secure as soon as you connect to an internet network.

You also receive DNS leak prevention, which safeguards your identity at all costs. To verify this, we connected to its US server, and you can see that the VPN protected our real IP address.

As the VPN didn’t leak our IP address, we can say that it’s safe to use in France

Avira Phantom is the last option in our best free VPN for torrenting list. If you have any more questions about this VPN, you can email them and wait for their response.

Learn more about this VPN in our Avira Phantom review in France.

Testing Methodology: How We Tested the Best Free VPN for Torrenting in France

There aren’t many free VPNs that would qualify as “good enough” for torrenting purposes. But, after testing 45+ free VPNs, we bring you the 6 free VPNs for torrenting that are still working in 2023. These VPNs have been tested on the criteria mentioned below:

• Encryption and security: 30% All the free VPNs mentioned in this guide offer 256-bit encryption for secure torrenting. They also have a kill switch to ensure your IP address remains secure. On the whole if you want a free VPN for torrenting it should have P2P support, leak protection and a kill switch. Which overall makes a 30%.
• Logging policy: 20% Pay extra attention to the business model of the provider. If the service is entirely free of cost with no obvious and publicly declared source of profits and revenue, then this is a huge red flag, as they might be selling your information and bandwidth to agencies. Similarly, make sure it follows a strict no-logs policy. We analyze the statistics of each free VPN provider we mentioned above and make sure they are safe before we suggest them.
• P2P Speed: 20% P2P file-sharing requires reliable speeds. Therefore, it’s necessary that the torrenting VPN you’re using offers good speeds to you. Since free VPNs come with a data limit and average speeds, we tried to list the ones that do not offer poor speeds to you. Just to get an idea that what should be the minimum requirement for speed, so it is around an average bitrate over 5MiB/s but ideally we recommend an average bit rate of 6.5 to 7 MiB/s.
• P2P Servers: 15% A great majority of free providers do not support torrenting at all. So, using such a VPN service to mask your torrenting traffic would be ineffective. Make sure that the free VPN you’re using actually provide P2P servers to mask you IP address and also supports torrenting activities.
• DNS/IP leak protection: 10% A torrenting VPN should never leak your actual IP address. Otherwise, you’d be subject to notices from your ISP if your P2P activities are leaked. Therefore, ensure that the free VPN you select offers a DNS leak protection feature.
• Jurisdiction: 05%  Policies against torrenting activities differ everywhere in the world. Some countries are more lenient about torrenting than others. Ideally, it’s better to use a free virtual private network located away from Fourteen Eyes because these countries are stringent against torrenting.

Even though we couldn’t find a free unlimited VPN for torrenting, we recommend you use ExpressVPN if you want unlimited bandwidth to enjoy unrestricted torrent downloads.

VPN Comparison Table — The Best Free VPN for Torrenting in France

Here is a quick comparison table of all the essential features of the VPNs listed above:

VPNs
The British Virgin Islands	The British Virgin Islands	Canada	Canada	USA	USA	Germany
Security	AES 256 Bit	AES 256 Bit	AES 256 Bit	AES 256 Bit	AES 256-bit	AES 256-bit
Data Usage Limit	Unlimited	10 GB/mo	500 MB/mo	10 GB/mo	Unlimited	500 MB/mo
P2P	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shared IP addresses	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kill Switch	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Time to Download 500MB file	40 seconds	60 seconds	90 seconds	120 seconds	80 seconds	150 seconds
Logs data	No	No	No	No	Some	No
Port forwarding	No	No	Yes	Dynamic port forwarding	Yes	No
More Info	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site

Why You Need a VPN for Torrenting in France

You should always use a VPN for torrenting in France since a VPN encrypts your entire traffic before it leaves your PC, which means that your ISP cannot monitor your online activity.

To protect your privacy and unblock torrenting sites, one requires a VPN for torrenting. Using a VPN, your online traffic is encrypted, ensuring no one can see what you’re doing.

Downloading and uploading torrents without a virtual private network is quite risky as your activities are exposed to copyright trolls, other torrenters, and your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

This is why using a VPN is the key to secure torrenting. Here are all the reasons why you need to use a VPN for torrenting:

1. Concealing your torrenting activities from your ISP:

For analyzing internet traffic, ISPs utilize Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). Not encrypting your traffic would result in your ISP recording the files you torrent and using your information to throttle your torrenting traffic.

ISPs can also prevent you from accessing certain file-sharing sites or send a DMCA notice if you accidentally download copyrighted material.

2. Avoiding third parties from snooping into your downloads:

For finding torrenters downloading copyrighted content, including movies, shows, music, and more, copyright enforcement organizations monitor all torrenting traffic.

Copyright trolls monitor the IP addresses of all torrenters’ downloading and uploading files. In case of copyright violations, they contact the ISPs of the users and inform them. To avoid this, you really need to use a VPN.

3. Accessing blocked torrenting sites:

Around 8 thousand file-sharing domains are blocked across the world. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are known to do this.

To bypass these blockages, a VPN is the best option. A VPN would protect your activities, keep you anonymous, and let you access blocked file-sharing sites.

4. Security from other peers:

BitTorrent, uTorrent, and others are P2P protocols, and everyone downloading the same file is known to be a peer.

The IPs of all users are visible to everyone in the torrent swarm, including copyright trolls and owners of the content. Anyone can use your IP address to link you up and then use this information to harass you. So, to avoid that, one must use a torrenting VPN.

5. Avoid your IP address from being recorded in a P2P database:

Multiple websites on the internet publish records of P2P activities and all IPs related to them. These databases can be viewed by anyone, including media organizations and lawyers.

Free Torrenting VPNs to Avoid in France 2023

Some free P2P VPNs can be quite dangerous and may steal your data to sell it for a profit. You should give a wide berth to the following services if you want to perform torrenting safely:

1. Hola VPN:

Hola was quite popular back in the day, but it was found selling users’ idle bandwidth for botnets. The VPN used a network of users that could dedicate their computers as mini-servers for others to utilize without their knowledge. It was then used for launching DDoS attacks, distributing pirated content, and more.

This way, the Hola community of users could allow others to share their resources to receive the same reciprocal benefit. For these reasons, Hola is riddled with problems and should be avoided at all costs. Learn more in our Hola VPN review in France.

2. Betternet:

Betternet is a free virtual private network that is actually pretty bad for several reasons. Research from CSIRO revealed that the Betternet app installed adware, malware, and trackers on users’ devices.

As a result, Betternet is better suited as a tool guaranteed to destroy your privacy, far from protecting it. The worrying fact is that many such free torrent VPN services seem innocuous and safe at the forefront but have dodgy logging policies and actually store users’ information for selling.

As such, Betternet is another VPN you should avoid. Read more in our Betternet VPN review in France.

3. Thunder VPN:

This is another free VPN that you can use for torrenting. Thunder VPN is available only for Android, has an insecure connection protocol, and lacks adequate security features. While this VPN claims to be a no-logs option, it collects a lot of identifiable data of users.

FAQs – Best Free VPN for Torrenting in France

Wrapping Up!

The restrictions against online piracy are stricter today than ever before. The best free VPN for torrenting can protect your online privacy from the eyes of your internet service provider and authorities. However, free VPNs always come with restrictions such as a bandwidth cap, speed, servers, and more.

If you still want to use the best free VPN for torrenting in France, you can try Windscribe, which is a secure option. But, it only offers 10 GB of free data per month, which might not be enough for users with extensive downloading or uploading needs.

To avoid any risk while torrenting and limitations, we recommend using a premium VPN like ExpressVPN that offers 24/7 customer support, robust security features, and a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can use it free for 30 days and claim a refund if you’re not happy.