Is Kaspersky VPN Good for Torrenting

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Kaspersky Lab has made its name on security. There isn’t a person who didn’t hear about Kaspersky antivirus. Whereas this product is well-known worldwide, Kaspersky supplies other security solutions, too. For example, it offers Secure Connection VPN to anonymize your web activities. You would need a VPN for lots of purposes, one of the most prominent of which is torrenting. But is Kaspersky VPN good for torrenting? We carried out massive research to answer this question, so stay tuned if you don’t want to miss a thing. 

Does Kaspersky VPN Allow Torrenting?

On paper, Kaspersky VPN allows torrenting. In reality, when stating that you must respect the laws of a country you live in, the company basically forbids you to download from websites such as The Pirate Bay. These platforms are known for hosting pirated content and if you get it onto your device, Kaspersky will turn you in to the authorities or copyright holders. 

As a way out, you can connect to Kaspersky VPN’s server in a torrent-friendly country (it has servers in Mexico, for instance) but the selection of such locations is scarce. Anyways, it is a bad sign if your VPN strongly advises against breaking the law.

Can You Use Kaspersky for P2P File Sharing At All?

If you want to take a risk, sure, you can use Kaspersky further. But let’s see if it’s able to provide an enjoyable experience. Below, we singled out some of the most important features for torrenting to let you know whether Kaspersky VPN pulls them off.

  1. Speeds. As expected, speeds were under the par. The service has only 18 servers in its network and apparently, their bandwidth is not enough to meet every user’s needs.
  2. Jurisdiction. Kaspersky is based in Russia. On the one hand, it is outside of the Five / Nine / Fourteen Eyes countries so Russia is unlikely to share any intelligence data with Western countries, nor does it regard any subpoena issued by their courts. On the other hand, the high-profile Telegram case proved that privacy means nothing to Russian authorities. Moreover, only VPNs approved by the government have the right to operate in Russia. It is a no-brainer to guess that such VPNs are used to monitor people’s activities. 
  3. Logging. Kaspersky’s website points out that there is no activity logging. The service doesn’t know which websites you viewed. Along with that, there is plenty of other data it will register: date and time when you started and stopped a connection, which servers you used, bandwidth consumed, and, likely, your IP address. While other providers will do their best to protect you from legal prosecution, Kaspersky Secure Connection VPN will report your violations to ‘the appropriate authorized executive agencies and assist them in revealing your identity’. It’s clear that neither your identity, not your activities are under wraps with this provider. 
  4. Network. The service doesn’t run its own network. Instead, it rents servers from Hotspot Shield. In one of our posts, we revealed that Hotspot Shield is not a safe service. It may happen that it monitors your activities on a par with Kaspersky.
  5. Encryption and Security. Encryption is pretty strong with Kaspersky VPN – it implements AES-256 cipher and OpenVPN protocol (as well as 4 other protocols). We didn’t detect any leaks. On the not-so-bright side, there is no Kill Switch, no split tunneling, no SOCKS 5 proxy, or any other advanced security functionality.
  6. Ease of Use. Windows, Android, and iOS apps have a simplistic and intuitive interface. Novice users will surely like using something this straightforward but security pros will suffer from the lack of settings. 
  7. Pricing. The service’s annual plan costs $29.00. It is not too expensive for a minimalistic service but we’ve seen many offers with a much better price-value ratio. 

Best VPN Alternatives for Torrenting

Since Kaspersky is an ill-fitting solution for torrenting due to serious security issues and terrible speeds, you should explore some other options. The services we listed below all boast strong user-protection features, fast and consistence performance, handy apps, and, most importantly, they allow torrenting across the network:

VPN
  • Provider
  • User Rating
  • Our Review
  • Price
Our #1 Choice
NordVPN Logo
PureVPN Logo
ExpressVPN logo

The Bottom Line

Kaspersky VPN is not good for torrenting. Strictly saying, if you’re going to download only legal files, you won’t face any issues. However, it is unlikely that you know beforehand whether downloaded files are legal or not. Kaspersky VPN clearly states that it will report you if your activities involve law infringement. This reason alone is evidence that you should stay away from this service and instead use one of the alternative VPNs we recommend.

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