When you’re protecting your torrent activity, it’s important to have a tool that allows you to check your torrent IP address and verify that your proxy or VPN settings are working as planned.
Enter the magic of the ‘IP-Tracking Torrent’.
These simple tools will add a tiny magnet link to your favorite torrent software and allow you to check your torrent IP address with a single click.
In this guide you will learn:
- What an IP address is and why it matters
- How to check your primary IP address with a web browser
- How to check your Torrent IP address
- Understanding the results of your IP test
- How to hide your torrent IP address (if you aren’t already)
WHAT IS AN IP ADDRESS
An IP address is a unique numerical address that identifies a specific location on the internet. Just like your home has a street address, your internet connection has an IP address.
Your IP address is assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and is shared by all devices on your home network that use the same internet connection.
Your IP address is publicly visible
Every website you visit, and every torrent peer you connect to can see your IP address. This is how they are able to correctly route the data that is being sent to your computer. For torrent downloaders, we always recommend hiding your IP address with the use of an anonymous VPN.
How to check your public IP address:
It’s easy to check your public IP address:
- Visit this CheckIP tool (by Private Internet Access)
- Check your IP address and geo-location (city-level accuracy)
You can easily change your publicly visible IP address (and hide your true IP address)
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows you to easily change your publicly visible IP address by routing all traffic through an anonymous VPN server, which acts as a middle-man between you and the rest of the internet.
Websites that track you (like google, facebook, etc) and torrent peers will only see the IP address given to you by your VPN provider, not your true IP address assigned by your ISP.
Most bittorrent users are already using an anonymous VPN service, but if you’re one of the few that aren’t…
Here are is some information that will help you. Please read it.
Top How-to guides on Torrent Privacy:
- The Ultimate Guide to anonymous torrents
- How to hide your torrent IP address
- How to use uTorrent Anonymously
- How to use Vuze Anonymously
- How to download torrents anonymously for Android
HOW TO CHECK YOUR TORRENT IP ADDRESS
And now, a simple truth:
Checking your torrent IP address is only useful if you’re using a VPN or proxy in order to hide your true IP address.
If you’re doing nothing to anonymize your torrents, then your torrent IP address will simply be the the IP address assigned to you by your ISP (see the section above).
Now that we’ve got that cleared up…
Use this free tool to check the IP-address reported to torrent peers
Here’s how it works…
Step #1
Go to one of the free tools (we’re using IPMagnet for this demo)
Note the “address you’ve accessed this page with is…” line. That’s the IP address your web browser is using. If using a VPN, this IP should be different than without the VPN.
Step #2
Click the ‘Magnet Link’ hyperlink to generate a unique tracking link. Open it in your favorite torrent client.
Step #3
Verify that your IP addresses for both browser and torrent client are what you would expect (more on that in the next section).
Here, the torrent IP is different from the browser IP address (both of which are different from my true IP address) because this setup is using an anonymous proxy for torrents and a VPN for the entire internet connection (maximum privacy).
Step #4
Once you’ve added the magnet link, you can easily check your torrent IP address without returning to the website.
- Open your torrent client
- Click on the tracking torrent
- Go to the ‘Trackers’ tab
- And you’ll see something like this (this demo used utorrent but it works for any client):
Just make sure your ‘status’ section is wide enough to display the full ip address, otherwise you might just see ‘Failure’ 🙂
How to interpret the results
There are four different result you can get from this test, depending on whether you’re using a VPN, Proxy, or both (or neither).
If you get the expected result for you configuration, then everything is working correctly. If you get an expected result, restart your torrent client and check again. If it’s still wrong, something isn’t configured properly.
Before you read on, make sure you know the following information:
- The IP address assigned to you by your ISP (when not connected to the VPN)
- Your current VPN IP address (if using one)
This will make it much easier to understand your results.
So here we go…
Just for the sake of example, we’re going to assume the following (your addresses will be different)
- True IP address = 200.50.1.1
- VPN IP Address = 99.99.33.3
- Proxy IP Address = 44.24.14.4
Result #1 – Torrent, Browser, True IP address all the same (Non-Anonymous Setup)
If you aren’t using any sort of VPN or proxy, then your torrent IP and browser IP address will be the same. Both will also match your true IP address.
True IP address = 200.50.1.1
Browser IP address = 200.50.1.1
Torrent IP address = 200.50.1.1
Your true IP address is Always publicly visible
Result #2 – Torrent, Browser IP the same. True IP Different. (VPN)
If you’re connected to a VPN, this should be your result. Your torrents and web browser traffic will both routed through the VPN, so they will have the same IP address. The VPN assigns you a new IP address different from the one provided by your ISP, so neither will match your true IP address.
True IP address = 200.50.1.1
Browser IP address = 99.99.33.3
Torrent IP address = 99.99.33.3
Your true IP address is never publicly visible
Result #3 – Browser and True IP address the same. Torrent IP Different (Proxy)
If you connect your torrent client to a proxy server, but don’t anonymize the rest of your internet connection, then this will be your result:
True IP address = 200.50.1.1
Browser IP address = 200.50.1.1
Torrent IP address = 44.24.14.4
Your true IP address is only hidden for torrents
Result #4 – Browser, Torrent, and True IP address all different. (VPN + Proxy)
This setup gives the greatest amount of privacy and safety when torrenting. It requires routing all torrents through a proxy server, and encrypting you entire internet connection using a VPN.
This means your torrents will be routed through a tunnel (proxy) inside another tunnel (VPN), giving 2 layers of protection and anonymity.
The results would look like this:
True IP address = 200.50.1.1
Browser IP address = 99.99.33.3
Torrent IP address = 44.24.14.4
Your true IP address is never publicly visible
MORE RESOURCES
We hope you found this guide useful. Please share it with your friends (you can use they sharebar on the left). I’m sure they’d like to know this stuff too!
Make sure to to check out our other helpful guides and articles below…
How-to and Torrent Setup Guides:
