PIA and uTorrent I'm I secure?

thrasherstudios77

Hello

I am new to using VPN's and what to make sure I am 100% secure, here are the steps I took to mask my IP in utorrent.

Installation

First I downloaded and installed the Windows version of PIA app from here. I didn't have to run as administrator not sure that matters but installed fine.

PPTP/L2TP/SOCKS Username and Password

Then generated a PPTP/L2TP/SOCKS Username and Password from this page.

uTorrent Settings

I then added these settings to uTorrent based off the information I found in this thread on the forums uTorrent Install Instructions

uTorrent-Preferences->Connection
Type: Socks5
Proxy: 109.201.152.1
Port: 1080
Authentication: Using the PPTP/L2TP/SOCKS Username and Password I generated before
Use proxy for hostname lookups: CHECKED

Use proxy for peer-to-peer connections: CHECKED

Start PIA and Connect set to auto. 

Head over to speedtest.net. When I run a test my download speed was normally 10mbps now its at 50+mbps so not being throttled by my ISP anymore which I had no idea about, which is so very cool. Also it states my IP is from a town I am not in. 

So everything seems like its working great but I wanted to double check and make sure. Also under PIA Advanced I see checks for VPN Kill Switch, DNS Leak Protection. When I check those I get a warning message, saying something about this option modifys the Operating System's network settings.... Would you recommend I turn these on, can they really screw things up if you don't know what you are doing?

thanks

OmniNegro

The kill switch simply stops DHCP from working. That prevents your OS from automatically replacing the VPN connection with whatever connection it can find when the VPN connection dies for any reason.

That annoys many people because it does exactly what it should and prevents your network from working until you reconnect to the VPN. People flood these forums reporting all manner of screwups with their network, when in reality it is working exactly as they set it to.

As for the DNS leak protection, that is basically a patch to keep the most vulnerable part of your network safer. I do not use this feature. I instead go a dozen steps further and use DNSCrypt to keep my DNS requests encrypted and ensure they go through the server of my choice.

But if you use DNS Leak Protection, note that it can in some rare cases cause problems. I think you will be fine however.

thrasherstudios77

Thanks for the information.

As far as uTorrent, if I leave the kill switch and leak protection off, am I secure? Should I keep tabs on my torrents and see if I have been manually switch to my default IP address. Is there a where to get at least a notice if this happens?

OmniNegro

So long as you use the proxy too, you will have redundancy. But as far as I know there will never be a notice when the VPN connection dies.

I do not use uTorrent, so I cannot be certain.

catcher749

uTorrent has a built in proxy kill switch, just tick Disable connections unsupported by the proxy under proxy privacy.

imonachair

I used this site to see if I was protected:

http://ipmagnet.services.cbcdn.com/?hash=483d6d30001b7f6b147e72f26f752a2458a7246e

OmniNegro

You do not want that whole link. That one is yours. To share the site with others, remove the hash value like this.
http://ipmagnet.services.cbcdn.com

Peter_Brown

To be really secure with uTorrent you have to make sure you are monitoring the VPN connection with something like a VPN checker so that when the VPN goes down it will shut uTorrent down (Hopefully). You could also do the kill switch or change Gateway to an unused LAN IP or be clever with the firewall.
To be secure on the VPN with a torrent I use Vuze, as you can bind vuze to the actual Ethernet connection of the TAP driver so nothing works in Vuze if the VPN is down.

Sunflower

You don't need to use a proxy with uTorrent if you are using PIA.
As Ominegro said...using it is

lrr100

I tried using vpn checker with PIA and the chat agent told me it's not compatible. I just wrote an article about uTorrent and PIA. I use Vuze. I also typed an article about forcing all vuze traffic through the vpn.

XweAponX

Know this is old. I used your settings in uTorrent, it appears I am connected and seeding. Any way I can test this? Sorry for posting on an old thread, I'll look for more current topics that have to do with this. Thanks.

OK I just did an IPLeak test, it's getting right through! WTF

Oh, I see: The DNS is not my DNS and the IP address muct be the proxy. It geolocates me in Los Angelos, I'm hundreds of miles away. Ok, this looks like it's working. I used the proxy address proxy-nl.privateinternetaccess.com, and it's working great. uTorrent 2.2.2 I think.