Best Peerblock Alternative (and Why You Need One)

Is Peerblock Safe? And, if not, what are the best Peerblock alternatives out there to protect you while torrenting? 

Heads Up regarding Peerblock

Many Bittorrent users have turned to a service called Peerblock (formerly PeerGuardian), which promises to keep you protected.

But it simply doesn’t get the job done on its own.

We’ll start out by telling you what Peerblock is and why it isn’t fully effective, and then we’ll give you some great alternatives. If you already know all about Peerblock, feel free to skip straight to the recommendations.

What Peerblock Tries to Do – and How It Fails

In short, Peerblock is a free program that claims it can block malicious IPs and by doing so protect you from the negative aspects of torrenting, we mentioned above. Peerblock is a small app that uses something called a “blocklist”, which contains a list of supposedly unfriendly or dangerous IPs and stops them from ever connecting to your computer.

In theory, this should prevent the blocked IPs from monitoring what you’re downloading in from torrent swarms.

But the problem is, not only does Peerblock not give you the protection you need while torrenting, it doesn’t manage to do it as well as needed.

Peerblock’s IP Blocking is Inefficient and Ineffective

There are two main issues with the way Peerblock blocks IPs.

Blocks Too Many IPs

Because when you torrent a file, you’re downloading it from peers – and the “peers” are those of other IPs.

By blocking so many IPs, Peerblock can have an impact on the number of peers you can potentially find for any particular download, reducing your potential download speeds. In other words, your torrents will finish slower.

What Peerblock promises to do, which is to block all IPs that want to monitor you, is basically impossible.

Peerblock Doesn’t Encrypt Your Data or Hide Your IP

Peerblock fails to do two other very important things when handling your Internet traffic.

Doesn’t Mask your IP Address

First, it doesn’t hide your true IP address. And whenever you’re downloading or uploading a torrent, every other user in that Bittorrent swarm can see your IP address – and every other IP address sharing the same torrent in the swarm.

This means that your downloads are linked and traceable to your IP, and (if you’re connecting to the internet directly) your IP is connected to your identity via your ISP’s connection logs and customer records.

Needless to say, this is not a good thing when it comes to torrenting (or your general privacy).

This means they can see everything you torrent.

In short, it’s a mistake to believe that Peerblock is keeping you fully protected while torrenting. It’s not. Not even close.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to hide your IP address, encrypt your traffic, and stay safe while downloading torrents, all without sacrificing peers or your download speeds.

Best Peerblock Alternative = a VPN

What you need is a virtual private network – or VPN, for short.

When you use a VPN, all of your Internet traffic will be encrypted and routed through the VPN’s proxy servers. This will not only hide your activity from snoops, even your Internet service provider won’t be able to see what you’re doing.

All anyone trying to snoop your connection will see is a two-way tunnel of impenetrable encrypted data between you and VPN.

Of course, all VPNs aren’t created equal, and there are some specific features you should be looking for when it comes to torrenting.

What to Look for in a Peerblock Alternative VPN Provider

Best Peerblock Alternative VPN Providers

The rest of this post focuses on our favorite Peerblock alternative VPNs for torrenting. They include all of the features listed above and make great alternatives to Peerblock.

All of these VPNs will hide your real address, encrypt your Internet traffic and keep no logs of your activities when connected to the VPN.

If you’re as obsessed with privacy as we are here at Cogipas.com, NordVPN is definitely worth a look.

It has a whopping 5,500 servers in 59 countries.

Not only does it provide the no logs policy, the kill switch, the servers, the encryption, and everything else you need, they’ve also got some awesome privacy features, like Double VPN and The Onion Router Over VPN. And did we mention they’re torrent friendly?

With NordVPN, you’ll be able to stay totally protected while torrenting. Plus, NordVPN often has great special offers available.

Try it 30 days risk-free.  

Torrent users can be pretty frugal people. But no worries, because it doesn’t get any cheaper than Private Internet Access.

For a super low price, you’ll get all of the features you need for safe torrenting, including a strong no logs policy, kill switch technology and strong encryption.

PIA also provides users with a ton of servers (over 17,000 to be exact) and a SOCKS5 proxy included free for no extra charge.

And you’ll be able to use PIA on 10 devices at the same time, for the price of one subscription. There’s even a 30-day money-back guarantee, if you’re unsure.

Try it 30 days risk-free.  

ExpressVPN: Fastest Pick

Google around and you'll quickly see that ExpressVPN comes highly recommended for torrenting. So it will come as no surprise that we recommend it as an excellent Peerblock alternative. 

What makes ExpressVPN such a good alternative to Peerblock?  Well, it is a near flawless VPN for torrenting. Here's just a flavor as to why.

​See what we mean? ExpressVPN is a torrenter's dream.

Using a VPN for Torrenting is Easy

Any of these VPNs will do a great job helping you torrent safely. And the best part is, they’re super easy to use.

Once you’re signed up and have the VPN app installed, it’s as simple as selecting a server and then ‘connect’. From there, all of your torrent traffic will be routed through the VPN automatically, protecting your usage from prying eyes.

And unlike Peerblock, you won’t lose peers or download speeds.

All three VPNs we have recommended above have 7- to 30-day money-back guarantees, so why not give them a try? Sign up today and get started.