After the Mullvad fiasco I decided to stop using VPNs all together, since port forwarding is always going to be a problem on all of them, if you read the reasons why Mullvad had to shut down that service.

There is a better way using i2p which conceals your IP and makes it impossible for anyone to know what or if you're downloading at all! No DMCA notices, no problem.

I wrote this small guide to another comment and figured I'd share it in its own post since I'm seeing so many people ask for VPN recommendations.

So there are 2 main implementations of i2p. First is the main Dev’s Java client here https://geti2p.net/en/download

The other is i2pd, which is C++.

I use the Java one personally but both would work. Someone posted back on reddit a guide on /r/i2p for qbittorrent, which is what I use now for this too. The guide was shared as a public torrent you can download with this info hash: 3f1d51095f9b116739172c1bced149acf2b10692

Use that hash with any of the various public trackers and you should be able to download that guide.

But if you just want a basic setup, that Java client comes with i2psnark, which is a Bittorrent client already setup.

The only other thing you want to do is go and search the biggest tracker for stuff, which is called PaTracker, Postman’s tracker. http://tracker2.postman.i2p, only accessible from i2p itself, which you’ll need to have setup and running first to view.

This tracker needs more seeders and uploaders in general, and by improving those things service for everyone is better. So the more the merrier.

Thanks! Feel free to ask any questions, there also might be other people who use i2p now for torrenting. I'm sure they'll help too.

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[–] BrotherCod@kbin.social 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I2p is not a substitution for a proxy. I2p is an end-to-end encryption Network and unless it's changed over the past couple of years it's incredibly slow for any multimedia transfer. Coupled on top of that you have to have the knowledge to be able to set up your full system to route all traffic through it. So using it as a a security step for most people is already out of the question. It's not like a VPN where you can just plug and play. Having your entire network communicate through l2p is going to make everything substantially slower.

[–] karce@wizanons.dev 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (8 children)

You don't need to route all traffic, just the traffic from your bittorrent client.

Download speeds have improved significantly as there are more people on there seeding than ever.

i2p is significantly better than a proxy, you jump through multiple hosts/tunnels before reaching the service.

Also it isn't all network traffic at all, just services connecting through i2p like a web browser you have setup to use it.

[–] TooL@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Doesn't this still have the same vulnerability of the potential for a hostile takeover similar to tor? Also, is there any way to use i2p to bypass geoblocking? If not that's a major reason why I and many people use vpns.

[–] karce@wizanons.dev 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So no, i2p won't interact with the clearnet at all. So it doesn't help with access to clearnet sites that are geoblocked. I never used VPNs for geoblocking specifically, just for torrenting, so this wasn't in my list of use cases.

It makes sense sticking with a VPN if you really need to access a site that is blocked in your country. Or you could use Tor for that, but Tor has its own issues.

Also I'm still not familiar enough with I2P to know if it's vulnerable to hostile takeover. It IS a completely different protocol from Tor though, so my guess would be it doesn't have that same issue.

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[–] dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And what do I gain with this over having my torrent client bound to a wireguard interface running through a commercial VPN provider?

[–] SaltySalamander@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

And what do I gain

Literally nothing.

[–] elghoto@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Can you only seed to people on i2p?

[–] bumbly@readit.buzz 1 points 2 years ago

See this comment for seeding to both clearnet and i2p. I2PSnark (the builtin torrent client) only interacts with I2P, but biglybt can do bridge.

[–] karce@wizanons.dev 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

You can cross-seed with people over clearnet using qBittorrent or BiglyBT, but that also exposes your IP to clearnet people. So you could get DMCA notices if it is copywrited content.

Otherwise typically no you will only be downloading and seeding with people on I2P if you haven't chosen to cross-seed.

[–] elghoto@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Then this is no replacement for VPN..

Thanks.

[–] karce@wizanons.dev 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's worked well enough for me. Keep in mind this is just for public trackers. Private trackers shouldn't be used with a VPN anyway and you don't need to use i2p for them.

[–] TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 2 points 2 years ago

Why would you not use a VPN with private trackers? VPN all the things!

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[–] nivenkos@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But the multiple jumps make it very slow.

There's a reason we want port forwarding for near direct connections for torrenting.

[–] ZeroNationality@lemmy.one 3 points 2 years ago

That's not why port forwarding is important. Port forwarding is needed so that fresh peers can communicate with you and join the swarm. That act has the side-effect of speeding up transfers by allowing more people into the swarm spreading the transfer across more potential seeds/peers

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[–] MavTheHack@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

PSA: qbittorrent has early access (still in development) for native i2p torrenting. I recommend waiting for that to be officially released

[–] lp0101@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

Fuck, this is how I find out Mullvad is dropping support for port forwarding.

I already have a protonmail account, guess I'll get the VPN too now. My entire setup relies on using wireguard on the firewall level, so another solution like i2p won't work

[–] AnonLordo@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

That's the moment when lemmy became more relavant than reddit to me.

[–] lodion@aussie.zone 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Doesn't this make every user the equivalent of a Tor exit node? Meaning you'll have possibly dodgy traffic appearing to come from your internet service?

[–] karce@wizanons.dev 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

No. I2P works differently than Tor. There are no exit nodes, because there are no exits. I2P is separate from all clearnet traffic. For example, you cannot browse reddit.com from within i2p, like you can with tor.

[–] lodion@aussie.zone 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Gotcha. So its basically a large, decentralized overlay network...ie you can't use it to "privately" access clearnet content as you can with a VPN. Sounds like the headline is misleading.

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[–] FloppyFlounder8@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm skeptical of changing what works. Haven't had any issues with the VPN I use. I'll keep this in mind for sure nonetheless.

[–] karce@wizanons.dev 2 points 2 years ago

Honestly that is fine. Just consider this to be one of the times you hear about I2P. I also don't typically start paying much attention to something unless I've heard it like 3 or more times.

[–] Kaldo@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Can you go a bit more into detail what it actually is, what are its advantages and disadvantages and how it works? I find it weird that people are still paying for VPNs if the superior solution that consists of just running this program existed this whole time, there's gotta be a catch that you're not mentioning. What or who exactly guarantees anonymity and safety if using this tool?

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[–] archy@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have never used i2p but isn't it pretty slow? I only have experience with Tor and it's not recommended to torrent through Tor. I did listen to the interviews of both Tor and i2p on a Privacy podcast but it was a while back

[–] ZeroNationality@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago

It's one of those things that gets faster the longer I2P software is running. As I understand it, it takes time to building link betoween yourself and other members of the network in a safe and secure way, but once they're built up that extends your reach and speed

[–] jokkayom@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago

I'm hoping DHT and PEX support comes to libtorrent eventually so that qbittorrent can use DHT/PEX with I2P and not just http trackers. I think only i2psnark and a few other clients support it right now. I encourage everyone to cross seed their public torrents to the I2P network and upload to patracker to support the network. Unfortunately, for niche content and private trackers VPNs/seedboxes are a necessity

[–] Potato@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

How well does i2p mesh with private trackers? Would they be able to track up/down ratios?

[–] m3enzo@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'm looking up I2P vs VPN and people are saying that I2P cannot replace VPN but I fail to understand why. Can I get some more insight to that?

[–] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

I2p is a closed network where everyone participates and using cryptography packets are encrypted so so only the destination can reason them. All packets are sent through short lived tunnels which are connections of various nodes in the network that change at every so often.

You traffic never hits the main internet. Its a full darknet with a torrent network system , email, websites, private encrypted messaging and more built on top of it.

So they are all encrypted. Nobody knows the IP of anyone else

[–] karce@wizanons.dev 1 points 2 years ago

I think the only use-case maybe not covered is finding torrents that aren't uploaded to the I2P tracker yet. They need to be cross-seeded from people who originally uploaded them or from people downloading them from the clearnet to be available.

An example of this is anime. There is significantly less anime available on i2p currently than there are on sites like nyaa.si. People can cross-seed these torrents to make them available on i2p. I do that, for instance. But other than that I can't think of any other use case that isn't covered.

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